Sports Broadcasters - Part 2

Finally, I've managed to finish the next installment of my Sports Broadcasters list. Here’s a link to Part 1 from early December, and just to refresh your memory, I’m listing the broadcasters, for better or worse, who have affected my experience as a sports fan.

Keith Jackson – When I hear Keith Jackson’s voice, I automatically think College Football and I don’t believe I’m alone in that. Back in the ‘80s, it just wasn’t a college football game for me unless Keith Jackson was doing the play-by-play. His folksy, down-home approach was the perfect complement to the pageantry on the field. To be honest, I was shocked when I learned that he was from the state of Washington. I thought he was from SEC country for sure.

I think Jackson was at his best during the ‘70s and ‘80s with Frank Broyles and the ‘90s with Bob Griese. He’s had other partners in the broadcast booth, but I think he achieved a level of fluidity with these two that he didn’t reach with others.

A few years ago, Jackson announced that he would be cutting his schedule back and would do mostly West Coast games. That was a shame for college football fans, but perhaps the time has come for Jackson to consider the next step in his career. This year’s Rose Bowl was not his best performance for describing the action on the field, and my initial thought was that it was his age that was hindering his ability to see the play. Regardless, Keith Jackson is a broadcast legend and will not be forgotten.

Tony Tirado – Although Andres Cantor gets all the credit for his “Gooooooooooooooooool” calls in soccer, Tony Tirado was probably the first to introduce this internationally recognized term to American television via the Spanish International Network (SIN), the pre-cursor to Univision.

I was in high school when I first encountered Tirado on Saturday afternoons showing international soccer matches, an interest that had started with “Soccer Made in Germany” on PBS. My interest in the Spanish language was also high so watching the games served a dual purpose, but Tirado took care of the viewer who wasn’t fluent in Spanish. For periods of time during the matches, he would switch to English to give a brief summary of what he had been discussing in Spanish. Granted, most of what he said was false or inaccurate, but back then, who knew? It was an endearing thing to do and it made him stick out in my mind. That and the “Goooooooooool” call were his hallmarks in my book.

Later on, Tirado moved to Telemundo and Univision hired Andres Cantor who went on to dominate the Spanish language soccer broadcasting scene in the United States for the next 15 years.

Bud Collins – If there is a sport that owes more to a journalist/broadcaster than tennis owes to Bud Collins, I don’t know what it is. He is a legend in the game and it seems like he has been with the sport for a hundred years. Today, sportswriters are all over television, but back in the ‘60s things were different. Bud Collins was probably the first cross-over from newspaper journalist to television broadcaster when he worked for WGBH in Boston as a commentator for a tennis tournament in 1963. Collins described his first effort as “awful”, but the broadcast received a good response so a television career was launched.

The WGBH tennis series helped fuel the tennis boom in America beginning in the early ‘70s. While I don’t remember those broadcasts very well (I thought tennis was boring to watch, but I loved playing), I do recall my parents watching them often. My first recollection of Collins in the broadcast booth is from NBC's initial Breakfast at Wimbledon broadcast in 1979. Collins was joined on the telecast by his long-time partner, Donald Dell, and by host Dick Enberg, who was awful.

That was my first introduction to the characters of Bud’s world: Uncle Studley and Fingers Fortiscue. And of course, who could forget those signature pants that looked like they were made from some discarded, old drapes. Eventually, it seemed as if Bud’s eccentricities became less welcome to NBC and he has been relegated to the roll of sideline reporter since the late 1980’s.

Today, Collins is still a force in the tennis journalism world and here’s hoping that he sticks around for a long time to come.

Dan Kelly – Two of the most famous calls in hockey were courtesy of the legendary hockey broadcaster, Dan Kelly. The first is known to everyone in New England as Kelly was at the mic on May 10, 1970 when Bobby Orr scored the Stanley Cup winning goal in overtime versus the St. Louis Blues and then soared through the air in celebration. The audio of that goal is as special as the picture that adorns the walls of sports fans across North America.

The second important moment that Kelly described for viewers was Mario Lemieux’s game winning goal in Game 3 of the 1987 Canada Cup final versus the Soviet Union in what was possibly the greatest series of hockey games ever played. If you’re a hockey fan and you haven’t seen these games, then you haven’t seen hockey at it’s best.

Kelly’s style was solid, and his signature was “he shoots, he SCORES!” Who knew that someone could elevate that phrase to an art form – I can hear it in my head as I type this. Truly magical.

Kelly was hired to be the play-by-play man for the St. Louis Blues in 1968 and he continued with the team up until his death in 1989. He was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame later that year. It’s safe to say that there hasn’t been anyone like him since.