The first game called by Dick Enberg and Billy Packer

38 years ago tomorrow, Dick Enberg and Billy Packer called their first game together, a matchup of UCLA at Maryland. At the time, college basketball was very much a regional sport with a minimal national TV presence. Enberg was the primary play-by-play announcer for the TVS network founded by Eddie Einhorn. Packer worked as the main analyst for ACC games on the Chesley network produced by C.D. Chesley.

The game took place on Saturday 12/28/1974 at 9 pm ET and was syndicated to much of the nation. This telecast was the first joint production between TVS (which had rights to several conferences including the Pac-8 which included UCLA) and Chesley (which had rights to the ACC and therefore Maryland).

Packer's book Hoops: Confessions of a College Basketball Analyst provides a lot of detail on the first Enberg/Packer telecast. However, Packer incorrectly describes it as "a 1975 Super Bowl Sunday game". These teams did not play on 1/12/1975 (or any other Super Bowl Sunday for that matter) and there was no national college basketball telecast on this date either. The game actually took place two weeks earlier on a Saturday night.

According to Packer's book, the question of whether this telecast would feature TVS or Chesley announcers was still undecided until the morning of the game. Eventually, Einhorn and Chesley came to a compromise agreement. Enberg opened the telecast and called play-by-play for the first half. Jim Thacker (who was Packer's regular broadcast partner on the ACC games) handled play-by-play for the second half. Packer was the analyst throughout. Thacker did sideline features while Enberg was calling the game and vice versa. Packer said that he met Enberg that morning for the first time.

In his book Oh My!, Enberg also mentions this game and raves about how impressed he was with Packer's basketball knowledge and insights on that first telecast.

Enberg and Packer became a regular tandem during the 1975-76 season when NBC in conjunction with TVS put together a weekly package of national games. NBC first hired Enberg to broadcast this package and actually considered having him call the games solo. According to Enberg's book, he had been so impressed with Packer from the 1974 game that he recommended NBC sign Packer to be the analyst. Two seasons later, the network added Al McGuire to the mix to form a legendary broadcast trio.

CBS special on NCAA tournament - 75 Years: Behind the Mic

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the NCAA tournament, CBS has an interesting array of special programming planned. The celebration kicks off when CBS airs 75 Years: Behind the Mic on Sat 12/29 at 2 pm ET. This show is hosted by Greg Gumbel and features many announcers who have called the tournament over the years including Dick Enberg, Gary Bender, Jim Nantz, and Bill Raftery. It also contains a special segment on the 1992 Duke-Kentucky regional final with Verne Lundquist and Len Elmore who called that memorable contest.

CBS Sports Network will also replay this episode multiple times.

UPDATE: This show also includes a nice tribute to the great Al McGuire. Props to CBS for incorporating some original NBC tournament footage into the mix. And while Billy Packer does not appear, the other announcers discuss his contributions to this event.

ESPNU presents SEC Storied documentary on Sam Bowie

The next episode of the ESPN Films series SEC Storied chronicles Kentucky basketball player Sam Bowie and his injury plagued career. Bowie is best remembered for being drafted #2 by the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1984 NBA draft, one slot ahead of Michael Jordan.

The documentary Going Big debuts on Thu 12/20 at 9 pm ET on ESPNU with many re-airings scheduled. For DVR purposes, note that the premiere episode follows a live basketball game so plan accordingly. You can also catch replays of earlier installments of SEC Storied including:

• Herschel Walker (legendary Georgia running back)
• 40 Minutes of Hell (Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson)
• Croom (Mississippi State football coach Sylvester Croom)

Here is a preview clip. (Note: I'm not exactly sure what Jack Ramsay means when he says that Portland should have packaged Clyde Drexler and the pick to get a center and then drafted Jordan. It sure sounds like he is double counting the draft pick.)

Original NBC footage of The Immaculate Reception

With the 40th anniversary of The Immaculate Reception approaching, here is a look at the original NBC call of that controversial Franco Harris touchdown from the 12/23/1972 divisional playoff game between the Steelers and Raiders. The network rebroadcast this footage during the 1997 playoffs on the 25-year mark of the long-debated play.

Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis were the announcers that day although only Gowdy appears on this clip. I suspect that NBC had already dispatched DeRogatis from the booth to prepare for postgame interviews.

NFLN documentary on The Immaculate Reception

The final edition of the NFL Network series A Football Life focuses on the controversial Franco Harris touchdown near the end of the 1972 Steelers-Raiders divisional playoff game which came to be known as The Immaculate Reception. The special even includes a former director of the CIA performing a frame-by-frame analysis of the play. NFLN is premiering the documentary on Wed 12/19 at 8 pm ET with many replays scheduled.

This episode includes commentary from many players from that game. However, a striking note from the press release confirms that John Madden who coached the Raiders in that game declined the chance to be a modern interview subject.

Madden refused to be interviewed for the special because the play still draws so much emotion from him forty years later.

The preview clip on the NFL Films blog does contain a 1980s interview with Madden.

During a Monday Night Football game in 2002, on the 30th anniversary of the play, Madden did talk about it with Al Michaels, but sounded uncomfortable during the discussion.

Documentary on 1963 Mississippi State vs Loyola (Chi) game

One Night in March, a documentary which chronicles the 1963 Mississippi State basketball team and its participation in the NCAA tournament  That all-white squad, defying a state injunction against integrated competition, snuck out of Starkville and headed to East Lansing to face eventual tournament champion Loyola (Chi) which started 4 black players. Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News ranked this as the greatest moment in NCAA tournament history. This 34-minute film which was produced in 2002 recently became available for free online viewing.



This Saturday, the two schools meet on the basketball court in Chicago to commemorate the Game of Change nearly 50 years after this significant moment in civil rights history.

NFL Network documentary on Marcus Allen

The latest installment of the NFLN series A Football Life profiles Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen. The one-hour documentary premieres on Wed 12/12 at 8 pm ET and will be replayed multiple times. Broadcaster Al Michaels is among the many interview subjects. The NFL Films site contains a preview clip.

The episode includes footage from an interview that Michaels conducted with Allen which aired during halftime of a 1992 ABC Monday Night Football game. During that interview, Allen spoke out in quite strong terms about his acrimonious relationship with Raiders owner Al Davis.

ESPN 30 for 30 Bo Jackson documentary

The next edition of the fabulous ESPN 30 for 30 series chronicles the legendary Bo Jackson who achieved success in both MLB and the NFL. Jackson actually played both pro sports from 1987-1990 before a severe hip injury cut short his athletic career. His fame also exploded via the "Bo Knows" Nike advertising campaign.

The ESPN Films production is titled You Don't Know Bo and premieres Sat 12/8 at 9 pm ET with multiple replays scheduled. The ESPN site has a trailer for this film.

The 1979 debut of Dick Vitale as an ESPN college basketball analyst

<UPDATED 12/5/2019 to accurately label this telecast as one of the first on ESPN>

This week marks the 33rd anniversary of one of the first college basketball games televised by ESPN. On 12/5/1979, the 3-month old cable network aired a game between Wisconsin and DePaul at 9 pm ET. The analyst for this contest was Dick Vitale who ESPN had recently hired for $150 a game. Vitale was making his television debut after being fired as head coach of the Detroit Pistons in November. Joe Boyle who had a background as a hockey announcer handled the play-by-play that evening. Here is the opening to that inaugural telecast with both broadcasters in 3-piece suits:



Right off the bat, Vitale exhibits his trademarked motormouth style by talking essentially non-stop from the 0:47 mark to the 2:24 mark. Notice the facial expressions of Boyle while Vitale rambles on before finally turning things back to his broadcast partner. I counted 10 times that Vitale used some variation of his classic phrase "we talk about" during this intro.

ESPN eventually paired Vitale on a regular basis with former NBC broadcaster Jim Simpson and this duo called many college hoop contests during the early years of the fledgling network. Vitale went on to work with many other play-by-play partners on ESPN including Tim Brando, Mike Patrick, Brad Nessler, and Dan Shulman.

Ironically, this historic telecast was the only college basketball game that Boyle ever called for ESPN. Contrastingly, the analyst ESPN assigned to this event remains in the same role 33 years later. In a book published in 2006, Vitale reflected back on that first telecast and stated that he had never seen Boyle since that night.

NFL Network documentary on Barry Sanders

The next edition of the must-see NFL Network documentary series A Football Life profiles the career and life of Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders. one of the most electrifying talents to ever take the field. The NFL Films site has a preview clip. This 60-minute episode debuts on Wed 12/5 at 8 pm ET on NFLN with several re-airings planned.

Upcoming schedule for this series:

• December 12 – Marcus Allen
• December 19 – The Immaculate Reception

NBCSN documentary on Earl Campbell

The NBC Sports Network is presenting a documentary which profiles Hall of Fame running back Earl Campbell. After an outstanding career at the University of Texas, the "Tyler Rose" burst onto the NFL scene with the Houston Oilers in 1978. I still vividly recall his dominating performance in a Monday Night Football game that season against Miami.

The one-hour documentary titled Still Standing: The Earl Campbell Story premieres on Tue 12/4 at 11pm ET. Note that NBCSN  has a live college basketball game leading into this time slot, so plan accordingly if setting your DVR (or record one of the many scheduled re-airings).

The list of interview subjects includes longtime ESPN broadcaster Ron Franklin who was the radio play-by-play voice of the Oilers when Campbell played there.

The first telecast for the team of Pat Summerall and John Madden

33 years ago yesterday, the legendary duo of Pat Summerall and John Madden called an NFL game on CBS for the first time. This was in 1979, nearly 2 years before CBS permanently paired them together. Summerall and Tom Brookshier were regular broadcast partners at the time. But Brookshier had a family commitment which conflicted with the 11/25/1979 Vikings-Buccaneers assignment, so CBS instead put Madden with Summerall on that game in Tampa. Here is a clip from the opening of that telecast:



Madden was in his first year as a CBS analyst after retiring as coach of the Oakland Raiders. His made his CBS debut on 9/23/1979 when he called the Saints-49ers game with Frank Glieber. CBS only assigned Madden to 8 games that initial season, typically on weekends when the network had more than 6 games on its schedule. Many of his games went to rather small regional audiences. He worked primarily with Glieber in 1979, but also called one game each with Dick Stockton and Lindsey Nelson.

In 1980, CBS promoted Madden to full-time status. He worked with Gary Bender that season and was assigned to more prominent games including the NFC wild-card playoff. I specifically recall being extremely impressed with his insights while watching the Falcons-Eagles telecast that season. Madden used his coaching background to provide great perspective which was a stark contrast to the typical lackluster analysis of that era. He paid extra attention to blocking and interior line play and received many positive media reviews for his football commentary. Outside of the booth, his popularity was skyrocketing from the Miller Lite beer commercials. Madden had also developed a fear of flying so he travelled to games by train.

Heading into the 1981 season, CBS decided to break up the Summerall/Brookshier team and elevate Madden to the role of #1 analyst. During the first half of that season, CBS experimented by pairing Madden with Vin Scully for 4 weeks and then with Summerall for 4 weeks to determine which play-by-play partner meshed best with Madden. At mid-season, CBS chose to permanently pair Pat and John together. The Summerall/Madden team remained intact through the 2001 season (including a move to FOX in 1994) and would call 8 Super Bowls.

The myth about the first prime time college football regular season telecast

Despite what many media reports would have you believe, a significant first in sports TV history took place on Saturday 11/16/1968. That evening, ABC televised the Alabama at Miami game at 8:30 pm ET with Chris Schenkel and Bud Wilkinson calling the action. This marked the first college football regular season prime time national telecast.

The following season, ABC provided national coverage of three prime time games in the regular season. The most famous of these was the Alabama-Mississippi matchup in Birmingham on Saturday 10/4/1969 at 9:30 pm ET with Schenkel and Wilkinson also at the microphones.

However, for some strange reason, numerous newspapers, books, and web sites over the years have incorrectly referred to that 1969 game as the first regular season prime time college football national telecast and multiple recent reports continue to make this mistake. Furthermore, it wasn't even the first such game in 1969 as ABC had televised Air Force at SMU in prime time at 9:30 pm ET on Saturday 9/13 to open the season. I am baffled as to why so many media outlets are wrong regarding the facts about a milestone telecast.

Here is a chronicle of some of these erroneous claims:

In 2007, ESPN compiled a list of the 100 defining moments in college football. ESPN ranked this 1969 game at #95 and described it as the "first nationally televised night game".

To commemorate its 50th anniversary in 2004, Sports Illustrated compiled a state-by-state "greatest of" feature. The section on Mississippi included the SI cover photo from the 1969 game and claimed it was "the first college game to be nationally televised in prime time".

In 2008, the University of Alabama official athletic site labelled the 1969 game as "the first prime-time telecast of a college football game". You would think the official Alabama site should know better since the Crimson Tide participated in the true first such game in 1968.

Thet same year, the Marietta (OH) Times and an LSU publication also printed the same error.

The same misinformation appears in several books. In 2005, ESPN published the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia. You would expect such a comprehensive reference work to be thoroughly researched, yet this tome refers to the 1969 contest as "the first regular-season college football game televised in prime time."

Other books making this false claim include:

• The University of Mississippi: A Sequicentennial History
• Football in the SEC: Southeastern Conference
• 100 Things Crimson Tide Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

Fast forward to 2012 and publications are continuing to perpetuate this myth. In February of this year, the Courier Journal (of Florence, AL) called the 1969 game "the first national prime-time broadcast of a college football game". This summer, an Ole Miss site published a story describing the 1969 game as "the first national prime time broadcast of a college football game". And less than 2 months ago, an Alabama Crimson Tide online magazine contained a writeup on the 1969 game and stated that it was "nationally televised, a first in prime time for regular season college football".

So why do so many media reports continue to get this story wrong? Frankly, I have no idea, but I will offer a few theories:

• The 1969 game was much more exciting than the one in 1968 and probably resonated more strongly in the memories of those who watched it on TV. The 1969 contest featured several lead changes and offensive records with Alabama scoring late to win 33-32. Mississippi quarterback Archie Manning passed for 436 yards. Meanwhile Alabama won the 1968 contest by a score of 14-6.
• The 1969 telecast was in early October and featured two ranked teams, an undefeated Crimson Tide squad, and a highly publicized player in Manning. The 1968 telecast took place in mid-November when both teams had 3 losses and Miami was unranked.
• The 1969 telecast likely stood out more as it was the only game ABC televised that day. In 1968, ABC had regional coverage of other games in the afternoon and the national game from Miami that night.
• While I don't know how the myth got started, I suspect that once it appeared in print for the first time, subsequent publications picked up this erroneous information without verifying it and the effect snowballed. Still one would expect prominent media outlets such as ESPN and SI to perform more careful research. And there should be no excuse for media related to the Alabama Crimson Tide to make such a mistake.

In 2011, Ivan Maisel provided an interesting retrospective on the 1969 game on the ESPN site including a nugget that ABC chose 10/4 for its prime time telecast to avoid competing against the baseball playoff doubleheader on NBC that afternoon. Ironically, the central theme of Maisel's original article was the same false claim about the 1969 game being the first such prime time telecast. A reader pointed out this error in the comments section and Maisel updated the story to correctly cite the 1968 game as being first. Notice how awkwardly the second paragraph of that article reads from this revision.

Finally, I will point out that the weekly 2012 Miami Hurricanes football press release trumpets the fact that Miami was involved in the first prime time telecast in 1968, but incorrectly states that the game was played at Alabama. So even when the 1968 game gets its proper due, the truth still gets lost in the shuffle.

NFL Network documentary on John Riggins

The next installment of the fantastic series A Football Life on NFL Network profiles the colorful Hall of Fame running back John Riggins. This one-hour documentary premieres on Wed 11/21 at 8 pm ET with several replays scheduled on NFLN.

This preview clip looks intriguing. So does the upcoming schedule:

• December 5 – Barry Sanders
• December 12 – Marcus Allen
• December 19 – The Immaculate Reception

Darrell Royal documentary on Fox Sports Southwest

If you have access to Fox Sports Southwest (DirecTV 676), check out the special programming lineup planned for Thurs 11/22 which focuses on the football rivalry between Texas and Texas A&M. (Note: All times listed are CT.)

FSSW kicks things off with a look back at the 1963 game between these schools which featured a controversial finish and took place 6 days after the death of President John F. Kennedy. The schedule for that evening includes a re-airing of The Story of Darrell Royal, a 2003 documentary on the legendary Texas head coach with Keith Jackson of ABC among the interview subjects.

The Howard Cosell halftime highlights on ABC Monday Night Football

One of the staples of the original ABC Monday Night Football production was the halftime highlights segment narrated by Howard Cosell. This regular feature of the halftime show contained NFL Films footage of key plays from a subset of the Sunday games. Cosell would voice over highlights which were accompanied by canned crowd noise.

The presentation seems slow-paced and amateurish by today's standards, but this feature was quite popular at the time. Cosell's deliberate vocal style meshed well with the slow-motion video. Howard had a commanding presence and his unique delivery and voice inflection tended to make the highlights appear dramatic and important. Cosell would actually narrate the highlights without a prepared script.

After the first commercial break at the end of the half, Cosell would recap the scoring for the game in progress and then transition into the highlight package. Even if the prime time game was dull or one-sided, many viewers would stay tuned though the halftime show to see which games were selected and hear how Cosell described the action.

Here are some classic clips from 1971, 1972, and 1973 followed by a few observations:

• Notice how Cosell starts out the first 2 clips by stating that the highlights were selected by the producers. Despite this standard proclamation, many fans would blame Cosell if their favorite team was not spotlighted on the highlights show.
• When the highlights included footage from a Raiders home game, you could count on Howard to identify the venue as the "Oakland .. Alameda .. County .. Coliseum" (first game of 1971 clip). 
• He seemingly always referred to the Green Bay team as "The Pack".  
• These clips show his penchant for using "pet names" for many players ("Freddy" Dryer, "Johnny" Gilliam, "Johnny" Hadl, "Joe Willie" Namath). 
• Cosell also had a habit of interjecting the uniform number ("Franco Harris number 32") and/or college ("Raymond Chester from Morgan State") of the ball carrier during the narration.
• ABC was fond of showing highlights from one or both teams who were scheduled for the next Monday Night game so that Cosell could shill for that upcoming telecast (first two games of 1972 clip). Similarly, if one of those teams got blown out, ABC would likely omit that game from the highlight package.
• On the 1971 clip just after the 7:00 mark, Cosell, while describing a kickoff return, had the pomposity to state "he broke one earlier this year that you viewers will remember from our halftime highlights show". 
• On the 1972 clip, ABC presents the halftime score from Miami showing the Dolphins on top rather than today's standard which places the home team on the bottom.
• As an aside, each of these videos includes a block of vintage 1970s commercials near the midway point.

The halftime highlights segment was classic Cosell and most certainly wouldn't have been anywhere near as successful with anyone else at the microphone. Cosell popularized many catch phases such as "right there", "look at him go", and "he .. could .. go .. all .. the .. way". Chris Berman of ESPN (who has frequently spoken in glowing terms about the way Cosell did these highlights) always paid tribute to Cosell by using many of the same catch phrases and incorporating a Cosell-like delivery during the ESPN Sunday night NFL Primetime show which peaked in the 1990s.

Documenting the history of pro football uniform designs

While my primary focus in this blog is historical sports broadcasting, I also appreciate research efforts covering any aspect of sports history. So I am choosing to publicize the impressive work being done at the Gridiron Uniform Database. This fabulous site catalogs the design and color of the uniforms and helmets worn by professional football teams each year. The database contains template images for each NFL team/season going back to the 1920s including the AFL (1960-69) and AAFC (1946-49). This is an ongoing research project especially for the early years of pro football.

Click on a team such as the San Diego Chargers and see its uniform designs year-by-year. Click on a year and view the uniforms for each team that season - for example the 75th anniversary season of 1994 when several teams introduced throwback uniforms. This database even illustrates the infamous vertically striped socks of the early-1960s Denver Broncos.

The site also provides week-by-week portrayals of the uniform matchups for the most recent seasons. For other years, you can click on the "Who Wore What When" (WWWW) links to see a chart of game-by-game jersey and pants colors worn by each team.

I recommend listening to one of the site contributors, Tim Brulia, as he discusses this intriguing research project on a recent Gridiron Greats podcast. The Gridiron Uniform Database site also has a companion blog and a Twitter feed.

ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Naismith rules of basketball

The next installment of the ESPN 30 for 30 series chronicles an interesting quest to return the original rules of basketball document to the University of Kansas where the rules creator Dr. James Naismith had coached. The famous rules document fetched $4.3 million at auction in 2010. Based on the preview clip, this appears to be another "must-DVR" episode in this great ESPN film series.

The 70-minute documentary titled There's No Place Like Home debuts on Tue 10/16 at 8 pm ET and ESPN plans several re-airings.

Keith Jackson and ABC conflicts with college FB and MLB playoffs (1976-1986)

Keith Jackson became the #1 college football announcer on ABC in 1974. Starting in 1976, ABC also held a share of the baseball TV package and used Jackson on its postseason MLB coverage. This resulted in some interesting scenarios on October Saturdays which featured both playoff baseball and college football on ABC. And there was no consistent pattern in the way ABC juggled these assignments. Here is a summary of how ABC and Jackson handled these conflicts year-by-year:

1976: ABC assigned Keith to the ALCS (along with Reggie Jackson and Howard Cosell) and that series opened on Sat 10/9. However, that day Keith instead called the Oklahoma-Texas football game while Bob Uecker substituted on play-by-play for game 1 of the ALCS in Kansas City. Keith called the remainder of the ALCS.

1977: Jackson was part of the ABC World Series crew with Tom Seaver and Cosell. On Sat 10/15, Jackson called World Series game 4. Earlier that afternoon, Chris Schenkel filled in for Keith on football and called the Texas-Arkansas game with Ara Parseghian.

1978: ABC and Jackson pulled an interesting stunt. ABC put Keith on the ALCS and he worked the first three games (with Jim Palmer and Cosell). Things got interesting on Sat 10/7. That day, Keith called Oklahoma-Texas (which started at 12:30 pm ET) with Frank Broyles. After the football game, he flew from Dallas to New York on a Lear jet that ABC had hired. ABC arranged for a police escort for Jackson from the Cotton Bowl to the Dallas airport and an ambulance to take him to Yankee Stadium (as ABC was unable to line up another police escort). Jackson arrived just in time to call ALCS game 4 (which started at 8 pm ET) that night.

1979: ABC used Jackson and Al Michaels as co-#1 announcers on the World Series (with Don Drysdale and Cosell), Jackson called games 1,2,6, and 7 in Baltimore while Michaels handled the middle three games over the weekend in Pittsburgh. This arrangement allowed Keith to call Oklahoma-Texas on Sat 10/13 with Broyles.

1980: Jackson again pulled a form of double-duty. ABC assigned Jackson to the NLCS with Drysdale and Cosell. On Sat 10/11, Jackson called Oklahoma-Texas with Broyles (which started at 12:30 pm ET). He then hopped a flight from Dallas to Houston and reached the Astrodome while NLCS game 4 (which started at 4 pm ET) was in progress. Drysdale called play-by-play for the first several innings. Keith joined the telecast about halfway through and called the action for the remainder of the game with Drysdale shifting back to an analyst role.

1981: ABC assigned Jackson to the AL East division series with Drysdale and Cosell. However, on Sat 10/10, Keith called Oklahoma-Texas with Broyles instead of game 4 of the MLB series. The duo of Drysdale and Cosell worked the baseball game with Don handling the play-by-play in Keith's absence. Jackson returned to New York for game 5 the next day. ABC also had the World Series this season and used the same arrangement as in 1979 with Jackson calling weekday games and Michaels handling the weekend. This allowed Keith to call Nebraska-Missouri on Sat 10/24.

1982: ABC put Keith on the ALCS with Palmer and Earl Weaver. This time baseball won the Sat 10/9 conflict as Jackson called ALCS game 4 in Milwaukee. Meanwhile, Curt Gowdy filled in to announce the California-Washington football game that afternoon with Broyles.

1983-1985: ABC did not use Jackson on baseball.

1986: Jackson worked the NLCS for ABC with Tim McCarver. On Sat 10/11, Keith called game 3 of the NLCS at Shea Stadium instead of college football. This was the last season that ABC used Keith on the MLB postseason. Jackson remained a fixture on the ABC college football scene through the 2005 season.

So, for the years that ABC used Jackson on both sports, we have a total of 9 Saturday conflicts (two in 1981). The final tally:

• Jackson skips a game of a baseball postseason series to call football - 2 times
• Jackson misses football to call baseball - 3 times
• Jackson calls both football and baseball on the same day - 2 times
• ABC removes a conflict via the Jackson/Michaels World Series rotation - 2 times

NFL Network documentary on the Fearsome Foursome of the LA Rams

The great NFL Network series A Football Life continues with Fearsome Foursome which profiles the 1960s defensive line of the Los Angeles Rams (Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Rosey Grier, and Lamar Lundy). This one-hour NFL Films production premieres on Wed 10/10 at 8 pm ET and NFLN has scheduled several re-airings. The list of interview subjects includes Dick Enberg who was the Rams radio broadcaster early in his career and later worked with Olsen on the top NBC telecast crew calling NFL games for many years.

You can see a preview clip of this documentary on the NFL Films site.

ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on 1988 Olympic 100m dash

The next episode of the tremendous ESPN Films 30 for 30 documentary series focuses on the 100 meter track finals at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Ben Johnson recorded the fastest ever time in this event, but tested positive for steroids afterwards and was stripped of the gold medal. This episode titled 9.79* premieres on Tue 10/9 at 8 pm ET with multiple re-airings planned.

I remember watching as NBC televised this race live around midnight ET. Here is how Charlie Jones and Frank Shorter called the action: (the race starts around the 7:40 mark).



Earlier this week, ESPN launched the new season of this series with Broke which featured athletes who have encountered financial problems for various reasons. If you missed this fascinating documentary, check out the replay schedule.