Is Jock Jams Volume 2 the ‘most ’90s’ Jock album?

The spoken introductory track on Jock Jams Volume 2 is the classic opening play that does not clinch a game but puts an assertive team on a permanent pace to victory.

The game in question is a bid for the distinction of the Jock series’ “most ’90s” edition. It is the retroactive race to make oneself the answer when we ask which of these game-day music compilations packed the greatest volume and quality of items entrenched in their time.

Among the in-house input from ESPN, which oversaw all but one of the five Jock Jams and three Jock Rock albums, nothing matches “Welcome to The Big Show” as a ’90s-and-only-’90s drop.

The first five words of Volume 2, which precede a quick rendition of the SportsCenter theme hook, are synonymous with the highlight show’s Dan Patrick-Keith Olbermann episodes. Such installments ran from 1992 to 1997, when Olbermann unceremoniously left ESPN.

The ’90s were coming into their own when The Big Show took shape, and society and culture were already unduly hastening the decade’s exit when the titanic tag team broke up.

With Jock Jams Volume 2 hitting shelves 25 years ago today, it unwittingly incorporated the series distributor’s most famed era-specific phrase before it was too late. Beyond that, as it relates to this debate, it benefited in general from coming out in 1996. That was the point where the ’90s were seasoned and wise yet still had a dependable stock of steam.

The album’s actual musical lineup reflects that point. Nowhere else do Coolio or “Macarena” appear in the Jock series, and no time else comes to mind when you introduce those names in a game of word association.

Jock Jams had its mainstay contributors whose output was most synonymous with sporting events and dance parties. The epitome was 2 Unlimited, whose “No Limit” followed the introductory mashup of “Welcome to the Big Show” and Chris Berman’s “He could! Go! All! The! Way!” call (which he kept delivering on the network deep into this century).

“No Limit” was the Dutch duo’s second of four straight leadoff songs on Jock Jams. They sandwiched that with “Get Ready For This” — blended with boxing emcee Michael Buffer’s timeless trademark catchphrase — and “Tribal Dance” — remixed to feature another well-beyond-the-’90s ESPN personality in Dick Vitale.

SportsCenter’s “Big Show” is as strictly embedded in the ’90s as, say, the Prevue Channel.

The other Volume 2 artists who either returned from Volume 1 or came back for Volume 3 or 4 were Black Box, Amber, Reel 2 Real, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Village People. Together they typified the series’ tendency toward contemporary niche sports-DJ favorites and one or two token oldies per album.

But the series did not get much more mainstream or current than it did with Coolio. His “1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New)” was released as a single on February 13, 1996. It was the seventh track on Gangsta’s Paradise, which hit music stories November 7, 1995.

And then, as the fourth overall (third musical) track, it constituted the sophomore Jock Jams’ clear cleanup hit.

ESPN released “1, 2, 3, 4” on Volume 2 four days after Nickelodeon premiered Kenan & Kel, with Coolio going onscreen to perform the theme. It all happened the year the title track on Gangsta’s Paradise relished its share of accolades and received the Weird Al Yankovic treatment.

It was arguably not the first time Jock Jams featured a then-hot-handed artist whose appeal grew from outside a sports setting. Volume 1 had Tag Team’s “Whoomp! There It Is”; EMF’s “Unbelievable”; Snap!’s “The Power”; and C&C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat”.

It was certainly not the last time either. Will Smith and the Backstreet Boys both appeared on Volumes 4 and 5.

But coming as the latter two did in 1998 and 1999, respectively, those are more synonymous with the decade’s dusk. The boy band was still blossoming, and subsequently sustained its share of the spotlight post-Y2K.

On the other end, much of Volume 1’s content came from the late ’80s or from the ’90s’ formative years. The youngest track on the July 25, 1995 release — 69 Boyz’s “Tootsee Roll” — announced its own birth year of 1994.

Conversely, a heavy-hitting handful of Volume 2 tunes were hot off the console. Besides “1, 2, 3, 4”, Amber’s “This Is Your Night” joined the lineup within months (three to be exact) of its singular release. “This Is How We Do It” (Montell Jordan), “The Bomb”(Bucketheads), and “Boom Boom Boom” (The Outhere Brothers) were all from 1995, age 18 months or younger when they joined Jock Jams.

No song selections on subsequent compilations matched “Macarena” for its mainstream grip or constant evocation in relevant nostalgic countdowns.

So too was Los Del Mar’s cover of Los Del Rio’s “Macarena”. Whether it was the 1993 original from Spain or the 1995 cover from Canada, the dance fad was a stateside sensation in 1996 more than any other year.

Even Mr. Fischoeder from Bob’s Burgers, who cannot for the life of him remember that year, vaguely recognizes the phenomenon and its time and place. In the same month of its coronation by ESPN as a sports-arena sound-system staple, “Macarena” played at Chicago’s United Center during the Democratic National Convention. In the home of Michael Jordan and the reigning NBA champion Bulls, the presidential ticket most synonymous with the ’90s kickstarted its quest for a second term to finish the decade and century.

The way ESPN finished that era and its music-mixing endeavor was less about the best of the present. Some of that was mere happenstance. Vitale kept screaming “It’s awesome, baby!” for college basketball fans long after Olbermann shifted to the up-and-coming Fox Sports network and later political cable news.

That said, SportsCenter’s “Big Show” is as strictly embedded in the ’90s as, say, the Prevue Channel. Coolio’s last Grammy nominations came in 1997, with none other than “1, 2, 3, 4” up for best rap solo performance. A win there would have given him a repeat after “Gangsta’s Paradise” gave him the 1996 prize in that category.

That was it for his heavyweight stint, and for his presence on Jock Jams. For its last three editions (two by ESPN, and the last by Fox Sports), the series continued to load up mostly on then-toddler-aged singles. But with exceptions like Smith, the Backstreet Boys, Blackstreet, Madonna, and Usher, they were no one you saw much, if any, of on MTV at the time.

In fairness, ESPN’s last shift, Jock Rock 2000, featured multiple repeats (Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta”; Fatboy Slim’s “The Rockafeller Skank”; Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ “Zoot Suit Riot”) of releases in the upstart Now That’s What I Call Music! series. But the album’s title screamed an intention to make people look forward to the change in millennium rather than savor the present.

And no song selections on subsequent compilations matched “Macarena” for its mainstream grip or constant evocation in relevant nostalgic countdowns. As such, through Track No. 10 out of 21, Los Del Mar helped JJV2 put this game out of reach by halftime. They followed “The Big Show” and Coolio’s act to throw the third strike for a peak-present album.