the prorector classes: Troeltsch, in no way Show-bound
dreamed of a tennis-broadcast career ever since it became clear (very early) that he would be in no way Show-bound
Context
Troeltsch is the not-Show-bound body's other fate: the kid who understood "very early" he'd never play the game for a living and reorganized his whole self around narrating it instead — the blue blazers, the toupee-glassy hair-combing, the InterLace-cartridge library, calling pro matches with the sound down. Where the prorectors are washed-out players, Troeltsch never had the body to wash out, so he built a substitute career at the microphone. The Show is the sun everything at E.T.A. orbits; those who can't reach it arrange their lives around its light.