Play by Play

by Verne Lundquist

  I didn’t say those words back in January 1982 but I wish that I had. Knowing that my time with ABC was nearly over, I’d contacted my agent to see if I was going to have to resign myself to doing local news and the Cowboys radio exclusively. I didn’t want to give up the dream, but sometimes in life reality intrudes. So, when Barry Frank told me that I had a shot at a job with CBS, I was thrilled. He said that they were getting back into broadcasting college football. They’d also acquired the rights to the NCAA basketball tournament and wanted to see how I could do at that as well.

  Barry had done some negotiations on my behalf and he agreed that I would go to Columbia, South Carolina, the first week of March to do a Gamecocks contest against University of Nevada–Las Vegas (UNLV). This was a limited regional broadcast through six affiliates—four in South Carolina and one in Reno and one in Vegas. He sounded very pleased with himself.

  My guts roiled. “But I’m still at ABC. My contract with them doesn’t end until after that game is long gone and in the history books. Now you want me to put on a blue blazer and do a basketball game?”

  I had visions of angry phone calls, lawsuits, men in suits, depositions, interrogations, Watergate-like hearings questioning who knew what and when.

  Barry brought me back to Realityville. “Verne, do you really think that ABC gives a shit? They’re not renewing your contract. Obviously you have no value to them.”

  Still, I was worried about what my boss at my ABC affiliate in Dallas would think of me being on a competing network.

  Barry took the line that it is better to ask forgiveness than it is permission. Don’t tell them. How in the world would they even know what was on CBS in South Carolina or Nevada?

  Six stations.

  Six stations.

  What are the chances of this getting out?

  I decided to do as Barry said.

  Before that March date, I had another one lined up.

  At a whorehouse. Not just any whorehouse but the “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” I had to be on a soundstage in Hollywood to play myself in that film. Lee Grosscup and I were hired to play ourselves covering a Texas–Texas A&M football game. Nancy went to Los Angeles with me, and she warned me that this was Hollywood and she’d done a few films herself. Things always take longer than you can imagine so be prepared to do a lot of sitting and waiting. Of course, Nancy was right and we had to hustle to the airport to get to Dallas. I drove her home, packed a different bag, and was out the door to fly to South Carolina for the game. Rushing was both a blessing and a curse. While sitting there waiting to do my on-camera bit for the movie, I had too much time to think about what was at stake with the basketball game.

  I arrived a day before the game and went with great apprehension out to the CBS trucks. The first person I ran into was Patty Tuitte, whom I’d worked with recently on an ABC broadcast. Patty said, “You know, I want to tell you something. I always thought you’d look better in blue than yellow.” I had to agree with that sartorial assessment.

  I introduced myself to Rick Sharpe, the lead producer for CBS college basketball telecasts. I also met Bob Fishman, who in 2018 directed his thirtieth Final Four telecast. I was in good hands, and I hoped that I’d prove to the powers to be that I was worth hiring. As it turned out, I was very fortunate. The game was close throughout. That UNLV team was coached by Jerry “the Shark” Tarkanian. What a roster they had: Sidney Green and Larry Anderson at forward were a potent pair for the Runnin’ Rebels.

  I was working with Irv Brown, a referee as well as analyst, and things were going very well. I’d done radio play-by-play for basketball before, and I loved the game so much, I fell into a nice rhythm immediately.

  The other game being broadcast that afternoon was Louisville versus Memphis. The season was winding down and we were on the brink of Selection Sunday. That game was a blowout and was ending earlier than expected. The powers that be in New York decided they were going to switch over to our game. I heard the news over my headset.

  Six cities.

  Sick to my stomach.

  I turned to Irv Brown and asked him not to use my name during the rest of the telecast. He looked puzzled but read my panic and agreed.

  Then I heard the voice of my friend Frank Glieber over the headsets. He was doing the Louisville-Memphis game. I thought I detected a bit of surprise in his voice when he said, “That’s a final, ninety to seventy-eight, and we’re going to move you now to a game that’s under way in the South. It’s UNLV and South Carolina and for the play-by-play let’s take you to Verne Lundquist?”

  I may have imagined that question mark, but Frank had no idea I had this tryout with CBS because I hadn’t said a word about it to anyone but Nancy.

  Irv managed to avoid calling me by name, but we also had to do a bit of fill work to get to the top of the hour. UNLV was on the tournament bubble, so I went down to their locker room to talk to Jerry Tarkanian. Maybe the folks back in Dallas whom I didn’t want to know about my venture could have tuned in and not really recognized my voice. But they were sure as heck going to recognize my face and the pained expression on it as I spoke with the coach.

  After we wrapped, all I could do was laugh. My cover was blown. We’d have to wait to see what the result would be.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I was able to convince Dave Lane, my ABC station’s general manager, to let me take this as a short-term assignment on the first- and second-round games. Dave was always in my corner and I owe him a lot for how he helped me reach my goals. I had a fair amount to do to catch up on the 1981–82 NCAA basketball season. For longtime fans of the game, the preseason top five in that campaign were familiar names North Carolina, UCLA, Kentucky, Louisville, and Georgetown. Each of those received votes for the top spot going into the season.

  I got to do games in the first two rounds of the Midwest regional in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with Houston, Alcorn State, Marquette, and Missouri squaring off. Dale Brown, head coach at LSU, was at my side. Alcorn State was the champion of the South West Athletic Conference, earning an automatic bid for that small school. Marquette’s Hank Raymond relied heavily on his wonderful guard Doc Rivers. Doc and I would eventually be paired at TBS doing NBA games.

  In the end, though, Houston emerged from that part of the bracket and advanced all the way to the Final Four. That season was the first for Phi Slamma Jamma. Clyde Drexler, Rob Williams, Michael Young, and Larry Micheaux led the team. Hakeem Olajuwon was a freshman but already showed his brilliance. Famously, one year later they lost by two to Jim Valvanos’s North Carolina State squad, playing a part in one of the great moments in NCAA history with Jimmy V’s delirious dash. Olajuwon was named Most Outstanding Player in a losing cause, and he’s the only one to have earned that distinction without cutting down the cords.

  Even though I was only in it for the first two rounds, I really enjoyed doing those games. The tournament atmosphere was always fun, and as the field expanded from 48 teams in 1982 to its present 64-plus, the intensity and pleasure of the tournament continued to climb. Oh, and another bit of trivia about that tournament. Some guy named Jordan helped Dean Smith’s Tar Heels win the championship over Georgetown. I’m not sure I know what became of that youngster. In fact, that championship game featured three players who would eventually be named as among the NBA’s fifty greatest players—Jordan, James Worthy, and Patrick Ewing. Guess what Patrick is doing these day? Coaching his alma mater at Georgetown, of course.

  I understand now that the staff at CBS had other things on their mind during the tournament than the fate of one Verne Lundquist, but still I was on tenterhooks wondering what my fate was to be. As it turned out, there had been a bit of an exodus at ABC, and one of those who crossed the waters to CBS was a brilliant young man named Ric LaCivita. I’m not impressed by pedigrees, and I don’t know how much him having graduated from Harvard played in his savvy, but he was a young hot shot and CBS sought him out to be their coordinating producer for all their college
football games. He reached me to tell me that he had contacted Kevin O’Malley, Executive Producer of College Sports for CBS, and he believed that if I was interested, he could get Kevin to agree to hire me.

  Finally, about the time the elite eight was being settled, I got my own not-so-elite eight offer. Kevin did want to hire me, but for six NCAA football games and two NCAA basketball games. I told Kevin that was only 8 out of 52 weeks. I couldn’t live on that. He told me that was the best he could do. I asked for some time to think about it. He agreed.

  I spoke with Nancy and Dave Lane. I felt I was in a pretty good position to negotiate with Dave. I was a part of a really good team at WFAA. We had a lineup that included Paula Zahn, Scott Pelley, Peter Van Sant (now part of 48 Hours’ reporting staff) and most significantly, we battled Bill O’Reilly for a very short time. We won. If I could figure out a way to turn that 6 + 2 into a 52-weeks-a-year gig with CBS and my local ABC affiliate, I’d be able to make a go of things financially.

  With the wisdom of Solomon, Dave devised a solution. I would no longer be under contract as an employee of an ABC affiliate. I’d be an independent contractor. I’d be paid only for the time I worked doing the local broadcasts. That would free me up to sign, and avoid a noncompete clause, with a rival network to do national broadcasts. He also got the people at CBS, who wanted me to do the NCAA tournament that week, to agree that whatever game I was doing wouldn’t be shown in the Dallas market. This all took more time and anxiety and waiting and wondering than I’ve presented here, but bottom line is that I began my CBS career shortly after that tryout. My days of doing national broadcasts with ABC were over. Contractually, and in my heart, I was a CBS guy. Goodbye, bile yellow and hello blue.

  For about another two years I did WFAA Monday through Thursday or Monday through Wednesday during the football season. I did the college games on Saturday and then I did the Cowboys on Sunday. Eventually, as my responsibilities at CBS increased, I couldn’t keep those local commitments. My last sportscast for WFAA came in 1983. One year later I reluctantly relinquished my role as the Cowboys’ radio guy. I knew that Brad Sham would do a great job when he slid over from the analyst’s spot to play-by-play man.

  Wearing those three hats for that span required some logistical expertise getting from one place to the other. At first CBS assured me that if there was a game in the Southwest, I’d be assigned to it. Also, I’d work with the same partner. Steve Davis, with whom I’d worked at ABC regularly, had also come over to CBS and we were to be paired. All that sounded great—in theory. The first weekend when the assignments came through, I ended up in Kansas. Sadly, I was paired with a rookie broadcaster I’d covered when he was a star quarterback in high school and later in college. I don’t think the Wizard of Oz could have helped him much. He seemed fine in our pregame meetings, but his jaw got as rusty as the Tin Man’s and he could barely stutter out any commentary that day. It was the last game he ever did, as far as I know. Tough game on the field and above it as well.

  Fortunately for me, I’d done enough games that I could cover for his Oh-Shit-I’m-on-television moment. Funny thing is, it was another oh-shit scenario that changed the course of my career forever. After a bit of a rough start, when I was calling games that were being broadcast on only three affiliates and such, I got a break and was assigned to a Big Ten Illinois versus Wisconsin game. I had the highly regarded Rick Sharpe to thank for that. He put in a call on my behalf and I got my biggest gig to that point, a regional game.

  I went up to work with Dennis Franklin in Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, one of the great college venues in America. It’s always filled. It’s located in a beautiful city, a great campus. And we had an amazing afternoon that Saturday. The Illinois quarterback was Tony Eason. He was part of one of the greatest trivia questions ever—name all six of the quarterbacks who were taken in the first round of the 1983 NFL draft. Tony was one of them. The Wisconsin quarterback was Randy Wright. He was not quite that gifted, but the old Big Ten brand of football, three yards and a cloud of dust, wasn’t on display.

  Dennis and I arrived on Friday. I watched Wisconsin practice a trick play. I made a mental note of it. You never know what might come up and it pays to be prepared.

  So, sure enough, you talk about the stars aligning, game day arrives. Wisconsin and Illinois are battling it out. Across the CBS network, Arkansas–Houston ends early. So they pull that audience into us because we’ve got a very competitive game. Tennessee–Vanderbilt ends early. They pull that audience into us. Grambling–Jackson State ends early. We get that market. All of a sudden with about five minutes to go in our game we have the complete national audience. Seemed like every few seconds I heard Rick Sharpe telling me through my headset to standby and welcome those who had watched blank versus blank. I was like an anxious high school kid watching as invitees actually came to my little party.

  By the time everyone was on board, Wisconsin had the ball at their own 48-yard line and they were trailing in the game. Randy Wright took the snap from center, bounced it off the turf once. Al Toon, who went on to play for the New York Jets, picked it up. The linemen all stood up and said, “Oh shit!” and threw their hands in the air in dismay and disgust. Illinois’s defensive players froze. Al Toon threw the pass to the tight end, 52 yards, touchdown, almost untouched. Wisconsin went on top.

  That was the trick play I’d seen. The instant the ball hit the ground I said, “This is a valid play. This is no forward pass.” Thinking quickly, I switched things up and said that it was the “Oh, My!” play.

  Afterward, during the replay, I told everyone that in 1965 I was at the Texas A&M–Texas game. I saw A&M run the exact same play against Texas, and it turned out to be the winning touchdown. The sad irony for Wisconsin is that Illinois put together one heck of a comeback, kicking a 48-yard field goal with ten seconds left on the clock to win the game.

  The following afternoon, Nancy and I were watching Pat Summerall, John Madden, and Pat O’Brien do a Baldwin Wallace–Wittenberg game. Because of the NFL players’ strike, CBS had their NFL number one team doing that small college game. That was the first time I’d ever seen Pat O’Brien and he was really terrific as the sideline guy. To their credit, Pat and John treated the game like they would any NFL game. As I was watching, I got a phone call from Rick. He asked if I had heard from anybody in New York yet. I said, no, I hadn’t. And he said, well, you will. When your phone rings, don’t ignore it.

  About a half hour later Kevin O’Malley was on the line. He was really impressed that I knew the “Oh, My!” was a legal play and that I’d said so before they even tried to pass. He didn’t know how many other announcers he had on our roster who would’ve known that play was legal. He just wanted to call to tell me how impactful my call was in his perception of me. He wanted to thank me and that I should plan on doing more games that year.

  Do you believe in miracles?

  Okay, that’s a bit overstated, but isn’t it funny how life can turn on such moments? You just never know—that’s why they play the games.

  Clichés like that possess essential truths. I’d stuck with it and believed in myself, had some great people in my corner, and a big break comes from an arcane Oh Shit! play that I’d seen back in the day. As I’ve said before, a lot of young people ask me how to make it in this business. Well, I don’t know if this kind of thing is in the syllabus of any mass media or communications course, but sometimes things just go your way. Don’t overthink it. Be grateful and remember that very often the difference between great success and disappointment isn’t a matter of talent or work. Sometimes the ball just bounces your way. I can’t thank Dave Lane enough for all he did for me. If it weren’t for his willingness to compromise, I wouldn’t have been there in Madison.

  We talk about momentum in sports, and I’ll leave that debate about its importance to others. I will say this: once Kevin O’Malley made that call, the proverbial worm seemed to turn. On December 1, 1982, Nancy and I were home in the afternoon re
laxing when I got a call from CBS Sports, wanting to know if I’d ever done TV coverage for a golf tournament. I had covered several for ABC. It turned out that Frank Chirkinian, who was in charge of golf and tennis for CBS liked my work. They wanted me to cover five golf telecasts in 1983—the Bing Crosby Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial, the Colonial in Forth Worth, the Byron Nelson in Dallas, and the Masters in Augusta, Georgia.

  I swallowed hard. I could scarcely believe what I was being told. Further, they didn’t want me to go in cold for the Bing Crosby. Given the pro-am format and the early season appeal to those in the snow belt, ratings were always very high for that event. To help me get to know the rest of the broadcast team, they asked me to go to the Phoenix Open and join the group at the 16th hole. I hung up the phone and told Nancy what I’d just been offered. She stood up without saying a word and left the room. A moment or two later, she came back with a bottle of wine and two glasses. I felt sure that CBS wanting me to do golf boded well for my future in all areas. I could hardly imagine them sticking to the two basketball games a year that I’d originally agreed to. My sense was that I’d be wearing a blue blazer with far greater frequency than that.

  What can I say about Frank Chirkinian? Well, we called him “the Ayatollah.” He was about five four at best, with a big brush of gray hair, impeccably dressed every day, always with a cashmere sport coat, handkerchief in the pocket, Gucci loafers, the whole thing. And he was the most profane man I have ever known. I mean, he was a terrific producer and director, but God almighty, could Frank Chirkinian dress down people.

  Frank was in charge of golf at CBS Sports. He did other things, including the Winter Olympics, the U.S. Open, college football, and horse racing’s Triple Crown, but golf is what he was known for in the business. I recall entering the CBS Sports compound at the Old Phoenix Country Club for my debut assignment. There was a little room partitioned off in the back where Frank was. I told the secretary that I was there to see him. He heard me. I could hear him bellow, “Come back here!”