Crawl of Fame

by Julie Moss

  Among those who watched both segments was Frieda Zamba, a painfully shy seventeen-year-old Florida girl with mad surfing skills. “I remember watching Julie crawl across the line—I mean, it ran over and over on the news, on sportscasts, Wide World of Sports . . . it was everywhere for awhile,” she recalled. “When I saw Julie do what she did, as a complete unknown, it gave me the courage to see what I could do against the top pros in surfing.”

  Four months later, the women’s surfing world found out. They didn’t like it. Frieda and her friend-manager-future husband, Flea Shaw, flew to San Diego for the Mazda Women’s Surf Sport Championships. In Solana Beach, not five miles from where I live today, Frieda made her pro debut by blowing away world champion Margo Oberg, world tour leader Debbie Beacham, and the rest of the world’s best with an aggressive, powerful surfing style they’d never seen before. She was stronger, faster, hungrier, a goofy foot like myself, an absolute machine in the waves. And, I might add, a beautiful machine: Frieda Zamba is a striking woman, right down to the six-pack abs she still sports today as she teaches private lessons from her Costa Rica home.

  Frieda revolutionized women’s surfing five months after I did my thing at Ironman. She went on to win four world titles, including three in a row from 1984–86, and made power surfing a standard in women’s competition. She became my hero in the sport, a Wonder Woman who combined power, grace, and style in a way we hadn’t seen before. Also, I loved her commitment to fitness, to cross-training long before it became part of being a strong pro surfer. She was ripped—and, as I later learned, quite the runner as a high schooler.

  “That’s nice of Julie to say, because she’s been my hero since I saw Wide World of Sports,” Frieda said. “What she did gave me the belief that maybe I could do something with my surfing too. I was looking at a track scholarship then, and I’d run cross-country and got offers on that too, but I really wanted to surf and try to see the world. It’s not a coincidence I got started a few months after she did. I got the courage to try to be a pro surfer, in part, because of what she did. She and I also both got some funny looks from the established people in our sports; I know that during my event, I had to sit alone on the grass at Solana Beach, keep my head focused, because of comments a couple of the girls were making about me.

  “I just hope someday we can get together on the same stage, meet each other, and do a program together, because I pretty much think we feel the same way about the year 1982.”

  Well, Frieda, let’s see if we can bring our mutual admiration society together. I’ve always wanted to meet and surf with her. I’m a huge fan. I can definitely see a triathlon-surfing symposium or two in our future . . .

  After the studio interview was over, Jimmy Roberts walked us out to the car, along with fellow production assistant Robbie Cowen. Besides working on the original segment for fourteen hours a day for six days under rushjob circumstances, with Roone Arledge breathing down his neck, Roberts found the Tim Weisberg piece in ABC’s music library. “We don’t get excited about too many things, but even before we edited the tape, Bryce [producer Bryce Weisman] knew we had something very special,” Jimmy told Armen for the San Diego Union. “All of us felt the same way. This was a story we were all very attached to.”

  Sports fans know Jimmy today as an eleven-time Emmy-winning sports anchor and studio host, the closest thing we have to Jim McKay in today’s lineup. If he strikes you as friendly and engaging, well, he is. On the day we met him, he was just as lovely.

  Robbie is equally accomplished behind the camera, with a career that spans some 2,500 live and edited sports productions that include the Olympics, Kentucky Derbies, Super Bowls, World Series, World Cups, Indy 500s, and U.S. Open Golf Championships. Through his company, Cowen Productions, he has also headed up the ESPN SportsCentury Series, World Chess Championships, and The Sports Reporters, which ran for twenty years.

  As we reached the curb, Jimmy said, “Girls, take the limo and sightsee.” He then directed the driver to go where we wanted.

  They’re giving the keys to the New York kingdom to two California girls? Whatever will we do?

  Quite a bit! We stayed at the Plaza, brought along our mothers, and kicked around Manhattan for a day or two. We went sightseeing at the World Trade Center, Tiffany’s, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shopped at Macy’s, and had lunch at the Russian Tea Room, among other mini-adventures. Definitely different than how I thought I would spend those days—recovering at Tamarack, Terramar, State Beach, or one of the other Carlsbad surf spots.

  As we left Macy’s, a man who had also been in the store stopped me on the street. “Saw you on TV and wanted to tell you how wonderful you are and to welcome you to New York,” he said.

  Filled with that great New York moment, Kathleen and I returned to the Plaza. We ordered chocolate cheesecake and champagne from room service, and watched our show together. That was a very nice moment, sharing something between us that would link us forever in sports history. Let’s not forget, Kathleen won the 1982 Ironman. She will always be the champion of that event. Because of the way I finished, with the circumstances eclipsing her come-from-behind victory in the public eye, I have always felt empathy toward the other competitors who may have felt slighted that I stole the show.

  The way I see it, Kathleen and I both had something to be proud of. It was an even exchange, so we felt we could share this together. Which was good, because after Wide World of Sports, we led completely separate lives, intersecting only at races, and not very often at that. We remained friendly rivals, if you can call it that, until we turned our thirty-year acquaintance into a friendship in 2012 to race our thirtieth anniversary Ironman together and then launch Iron Icons.

  As everyone who has worked with the media from either side of the camera knows, when one big TV splash happens, others follow. I received a lot of requests, still really surprised at how apparently inspiring and motivating viewers found my performance. My earliest responses were pretty guarded, not because of crawling across the line, but because of the indelible image of the humiliation that still lingered. I was almost waiting for someone to make that little comment, which a couple of insensitive people did with nervous laughter, followed by, “You shit your pants on national TV.”

  I was really sensitive about this. How sensitive? Shortly after the in-studio interview with Jim McKay, David Letterman’s booking agent wanted me to come on his late-night show. “No,” I replied. I was afraid that David was such a loose cannon, he might take our conversation there. Unfortunately, and sadly, I didn’t understand that Letterman was a devoted sports fan. I also didn’t realize that he saw my race not as comic relief, but through the same prism others saw it—the motivating, inspiring side. I thought if I went on his show and he started teasing me, I would laugh along, out of nervousness, at the deprecating humor. I just knew it would ruin the way people viewed my race. I learned to protect the sacredness of that experience because of the early feedback. It was really special, not for me to make fun of, nor anyone else. Today, I regret not going on Letterman. It’s one of the very few regrets in my career.

  Meanwhile, my close friends still have a way of working the “crapping my pants on national TV” line into our conversations every so often. I laugh it off, because I now can. I’m always going to get comments about it, since that Wide World of Sports finish-line footage is now a regular staple on YouTube.

  But missed late-night opportunities aside, one of the other defining moments of that Ironman was a phone call I received from Armen Keteyian.

  CHAPTER 5

  One Article, Two Careers

  Every so often, we pioneers of triathlon get together away from Kona for awards ceremonies, seminars, fundraising events, or similar gatherings. We began when triathlon was a tiny sport, hooked our stars and hopes to the thought of racing for a living, and watched it really work out for some of us. Our shared experiences forged lifelong bonds, even among the fierce competitors we all were—and still are, in some ca
ses.

  It was into such a festive spirit that I walked in early August 2016. Scott Tinley, Bob Babbitt, and I emceed Tri Legends, an evening of discussion and fun that was hosted by Skip McDowell, owner of Nytro Multisport, a popular spot for endurance sports athletes in Encinitas, California. The evening was a fundraiser for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, an advocacy group for physically challenged performers headed by executive director Virginia Tinley, Scott’s wife. For two hours, 1979 Ironman champ Tom Warren, 1981 winners John Howard and Linda Sweeney, 1982 titlists Kathleen McCartney and Scott Tinley, Jeff Tinley, and others shared stories and experiences to a packed house. Four other faces fit for a triathlon Mount Rushmore—Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Scott Molina, and Paula Newby-Fraser—beamed in on video feeds with their twenty Ironman World Championships between them.

  Shortly before we began, I welcomed and visited with some fans in the front of the store. I looked up, and a most wonderful man walked inside with his wife—the great sports journalist, eleven-time Emmy Award winner, and longtime 60 Minutes contributing correspondent, Armen Keteyian. No, he was not investigating me—although months before, his hard-hitting 60 Minutes piece exposed the latest Russian doping scheme and started a domino effect that left Russia largely out of the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics. Truth be told, you don’t want Armen knocking on your door for that reason. He didn’t get to be a New York Times bestselling author, and a symbol of integrity, interviewing skill, and versatility within the journalism world because he asked softball questions or his investigative pieces fell short. He is relentless, tireless, and driven to find out the truth and crux of the story—no matter where he goes to get it. In other words, a 60 Minutes man.

  I know Armen in a much different way. I know him as the man whose incredible story on me in the San Diego Union following the February 1982 Ironman, and later as the Sporting News “Feature of the Year,” set a lot of wheels into motion.

  A former starting shortstop and second baseman at San Diego State, Armen understood athletics and athletes. As a human being, the empathy he brings to his life and work is the kind of stuff you wish all sports stories could capture. Besides that, we shared something quite remarkable, when you think of it: our paths first crossed when he watched me on TV, crossed again on Carlsbad State Beach, and then our respective careers shot into the stratosphere. The intersection of our destinies was not a coincidence.

  Millions have watched Armen operate from the heights of sports and news broadcast journalism. Many have also read one or more of his hard-hitting, bestselling sports exposes like The System, a mind-boggling look at the millions of dollars that direct the flow of college football and its elite teams. Before that, Armen was a sportswriter in Escondido, near Carlsbad. He became a writer-reporter at Sports Illustrated, a news and sports correspondent for ABC and CBS, a sideline reporter at top NFL games and Final Four basketball games, and a multiple award-winning journalist. He then went to HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and CBS News, where he was the network’s chief investigative correspondent, then 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes Sports. If you follow sports at all, or sports scandals, you’ve seen something he either wrote or broadcast over the past thirty-five years.

  Yet few know what triggered the ascent of Armen’s career. Besides enormous effort on his part, there was a little stroke of magic. That’s how the bond between us occurred.

  Armen and his darling wife of thirty-eight years, Dede, and I chatted until the Tri Legends program started. Soon enough, Armen found himself participating when Scott Tinley and Bob Babbitt lobbed a couple of questions his way. How fun it was for Armen, who felt like he stumbled into a homecoming that was, in some ways, his own. He helped to promote the very first United States Triathlon Series events in early 1982, a fact that few Armen Keteyian fans know.

  “Damn, I’m so happy we came down here,” Armen told my cowriter over coffee at an artsy Encinitas sidewalk café after they sat together at the Tri Legends program. Robert and Armen have known each other since they dug up stories as young North San Diego County sportswriters in the late 1970s. “We just flew in from New York,” Armen said. “I had to stop for a couple hours at the Denver Broncos complex and interview John Elway for 60 Minutes Sports. Then Tinley got in touch and told me Julie would be at this. I told Dede, ‘We’re going,’ and as soon as we unloaded our stuff in San Clemente, we jumped on the freeway. I did not want to miss this chance to see Julie again.”

  How do two people on entirely different career tracks and backgrounds rush into each others’ lives like shooting stars, and share an afternoon on the beach that becomes a catalytic event in both their careers?

  It started when my life arrived at its defining moment: with me on the ground, in Kona, face-up on the finish line.

  “I was riveted,” Armen remembers. “I could not believe what I was watching. I’d already spent years around all sorts of great athletes, in all sports, and seen my share of great performances, but this was beyond that. The will, courage, and one ‘oh my God’ moment after another. You couldn’t help but get chills and tears at the incredible test of will, and the reservoir of courage—to fall, to get up, to fall, to get up, to cross the finish line . . .”

  From his earliest days at the Escondido Times-Advocate, Armen could sniff out stories. His former colleagues and rival sportswriters remember well his knack for “scooping” them, getting the story first, and then deploying his tenacious, aggressive quest to get the best quotes, the best insights . . . and most of all, the truth. He did not suffer liars or athletes speaking in clichés lightly. More important, he looked for the best story he could find with the facts or circumstances that presented themselves.

  When Armen saw my race on Wide World of Sports, his inner bloodhound came out, along with the instinctive quality all good writers and journalists possess and trust when they sense a good story in their midst. He got in touch with me a few weeks after Ironman, after Kathleen and I had done the in-studio interview with Jim McKay. We decided to meet on the beach in Carlsbad.

  After the interview, Armen knew what to do. “It was such a great story, an amazing story, that I did some reporting on my own. I found out something else happened with this telecast. Roone Arledge [head of ABC Sports], who later hired me as an ABC News correspondent, seriously considered replacing the Wide World of Sports ‘agony of defeat’ show-opening montage [ski jumper Vinko Bogataj crumbling and falling off the ramp] with Julie. That’s all I needed to hear in terms of significance. Then I found out [eventual eleven-time Emmy winning sportscaster] Jimmy Roberts, of all people, was the production assistant who’d found the song ‘Dion Blue’ by Tim Weisberg. I had the sources, and the story. It was so gripping.”

  In both the Union story and a later conversation, Armen recalls much of our afternoon on the beach, right down to how overwhelmed I felt by what had happened in Kona. “I remember Julie being waifish, sweet,” he says. “When I watched her playing with the sand on the beach, she didn’t seem quite as ‘larger than life’ as she appeared on Wide World of Sports. She was humble, which immediately set her apart from a lot of athletes I’d covered. No question she’d been hit by this shock wave of celebrity, but you couldn’t find any arrogance in Julie, not one ounce. There was this serenity, this cuteness; not a naïveté but a true sweetness about her. That was rare. She could’ve been any number of other things, like cocky, conceited, already feeling entitled . . . she was none of those things. That made her story all the more appealing.

  “What became clear to me was that she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. I could relate to that; I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, either, after turning down a job at Sports Illustrated. Julie was still absorbing all the things coming her way. She was protective of the moment, of Kathleen . . . I mean, how many people reveal themselves in that way? On network television? Back then, Wide World was appointment television on Saturday afternoons for people who loved their sports. Twenty to thirty million people saw her struggle.”r />
  The Sports Illustrated job. Oh that. If you were a young sportswriter, or fancied a magazine career, could you imagine turning down an offer from SI? In 1982, you simply did not do that and live to face your colleagues, all of whom would run through brick walls to get that opportunity. SI was Mount Everest for sportswriters, complete with fifteen million devout weekly readers and occasional book and TV opportunities. If you made it to SI, you were the rock star who just hopped from three weekend sets at local clubs to headlining arenas.

  Yet, in January 1982, Armen turned down the job he always wanted.

  He originally applied because he felt constricted in his writing. Two years of daily, early deadlines at the Times-Advocate, and its emphasis on stripped-down, “just the facts, ma’am” sportswriting pinched his style. He wanted to write longer stories, dive deeper into his subjects, put his truth-seeking and fact-finding tenacity to work on a larger stage. He freelanced for the San Diego Union and San Diego Magazine, finding the longer-form journalism he sought. He also took a public relations job at the Phillips Organisation, which included among its clients Ektelon, the world’s largest racquetball equipment manufacturer (in 1980, racquetball was highly popular in the U.S.), and Speedo, the swimwear manufacturer. For Phillips, he wrote articles on racquetball champions and Olympic swimming gold medalist John Naber, a Speedo-sponsored athlete, which he then placed in trade magazines.

  Then Sports Illustrated came calling. “I had sent a number of clips to SI,” he recalls, “and was reading that masthead like it was the Rosetta Stone to see if some reporter had been promoted, or was not listed on the masthead any longer. I was in contact with Jane Bachman, who we knew as Bambi, the chief of reporters. One day, she made the offer, the culmination of a year’s worth of sending clips and making an annoyance of myself with the magazine.”