Other transcripts

Transcripts

November 29, 2002

Host: Michael Grant
Topic:
Walter Cronkite luncheon honoring Arizona State University alumni Al Michaels of ABS Sports


>> Michael: Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. This is a special edition of "Horizon." Each year the Arizona State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication honors a leader in journalism, often a nationally known figure. This year for the first time ever, the school gave its highest honor to an ASU graduate on Halloween. People gathered at the Phoenician resort for the annual luncheon to recognize Al Michaels of ABC Sports. In the next half hour You'll hear what Michaels had to say to the audience, but we begin with the introduction of Walter Cronkite and Dr. Michael Crow.

>> Dr. Michael Crow: This is a man who I am honored to stand next to just because of other things he has done. He was air dropped into the Netherlands in the middle of World War II. He was at Normandy when Europe was freed from the tyranny of the Germans and the Italians. He was there. He was there. That's something few of us, I was born in 1955. That's something few of us have had any opportunity to experience, be a part of, much less than to sympathize into our own being. So it's with no small amount of pleasure, honor, pride, strong emotion and feeling that I'd like to introduce to you, so that he might introduce our awardee this afternoon, Mr. Walter Cronkite. [ APPLAUSE ]

>> Walter Cronkite: They only recently arrived here from Mars, let me remind you of just some of the credits that this fellow, Al Michaels has earned. First of all, in our hearts is the fact that he is an alum of Arizona State University, as you heard. And that is the journalism program. [ APPLAUSE ]

>> Walter Cronkite: The rest of his career, of course, is of much less importance to us. [ LAUGHTER ] That career is impressive, however, and it's well worth, I think, a little contemplation. He's simply considered the nation's best sports broadcaster by that great fraternity of sports fans, by athletes of almost every game that one could imagine, and name, and perhaps some that you couldn't think of, and perhaps most significantly, by his colleagues in the sports reporting business, broadcast and written. I know all of you are delighted that this broadcasting star, this icon, indeed, is taking time from his incredibly heavy schedule to spend a little time with us today and giving us an opportunity to honor him as he should be honored. Now, a man who has inspired our students. Your career has been a great honor to ASU, and it is more than fitting and our great pleasure to present to you this recognition of all that you have meant to your alma mater and to the world of sports. [ APPLAUSE ]

>> Walter Cronkite: Just talk directly into that. [ LAUGHTER ]

>> Al Michaels: I know how to do that. I'm working with an ear piece with the producer. The -- boy, this is heavy stuff. I have to tell you. I'm just sitting here and thinking about how long ago it was that I was at Arizona state, and then to come up here and to receive an award from Walter Cronkite is almost like an out of body experience. I mean, I am here, right? This is the Phoenician. It is Halloween, only that explains it. And I'm thinking to myself, I've just gotten this incredible award from Walter Cronkite and I go back to when I was a sophomore at ASU, 19 years old and at 601 alpha drive, which was brand new at that particular point. I'm not quite sure what it is today, but it was state of the art, and I gathered the boys around the television one night and I said watch this. And I had the inside number at KTAR, and they were in the middle of the 10:00 news, and I new at a particular point in time, the sports reporter, a man by the name of Bob VACHET would be making his way from the news room to the desk out on the set to deliver the sports, at which point I picked up the phone and I say to whoever picks up the phone in the news room, hey, Rosie Ryan here, general manager of the Phoenix giants, the giants had come to town, Triple-A, you've got to do me a favor. There's been a problem with the schedule, Tulsa was supposed to be here tomorrow night, the game has been cancelled. Can you have Bob do us a big favor and tell everybody the game is off. [ LAUGHTER ] We gather around the television set. Needless to say, final item of the night, and Bob was a very serious man with a stenturian delivery, and finally tonight the Phoenix giants have announced because of a scheduling discrepancy, their game with Tulsa will not be played tomorrow night but will be scheduled at eight later date. The fraternity house goes crazy. And then we can't wait to get back the next night for the 6:00 news when poor Bob has to come on the air and leave lead with "well, if this reporter has egg on its face I fell victim last night to the oldest trick in the book, the phony phone call. [ APPLAUSE ]

>>Al Michaels: and here I am getting the Cronkite award. Now, Walter says it's been rescinded. You'll really rescind it after you hear this. So as a junior (LAUGHS) the president was on the way back to Columbia. I was a junior. What are you going to do? I've got to play "can you top this." I gathered the boys one night -- watch this. Had the inside number to "The Arizona Republic" sports desk. I said listen, this game is just over, Fredonia high school, a high school in the northwestern, Arizona. And this is the precable, preeverything, who is going to check this thing out. We've got a kid up here. His name is Clint Romas. I make up a name. This guy just hit two home runs and pitched a shut-out. Sure enough the next morning in "The Arizona Republic," there it is. You know, Fred dean your 8, Winslow nothing, the totals. Two home runs. Week later, call back in, you know that Romas? Four home once, pitched a no-hitter, walked a guy. Next day, Arizona republic. Wait a week and a half. You're not going to believe this, boys, get the desk, Clint Romas, perfect game, five home runs, and a double! Now we have a line score and a little story with a headline. One more time. Clint Romas hits 7 home runs, pitches a perfect game, strikes everybody out and Danny Murtaugh, the manager of the pirates has flown west to offer him $100,000 contract. The jig was up. They caught me, but through the years, I think it's given Dave Hicks and the guys at "The Arizona Republic" a lot of fodder for some columns. But that was as a junior.

>>>Al Michaels: As a senior, while I had a lot of great teachers, one of whom of course -- two of whom are here today, Bob Ellis, the head of the department at that point, and Chuck Allen, and Bob, I want to see you about that B minus, by the way, on that last composition after we're finished, but we had a professor in the journalism department, his name was Gordon Jones, and Gordon had come over from Los Angeles. He was barely older than the students. Gordon and I, it didn't take us very long to discover that we had a mutual affinity and love for horse racing. So we had our -- our class was from 11:40 until 12:30, three days a week. But by about the third week, Gordon and I are talking about horses and showing up early. He's got the racing form. We're perusing the racing form, and if we saw something we liked in the daily double at turf paradise, which that the point, we knew it would take about 47 minutes from the parking lot to the parking lot at Turf Paradise, Gordon would summarily end the class at 3 minutes to 12:00 so we could get that bet down. Greatest teacher in the history of mankind. [ APPLAUSE ]

>> Al Michaels: So I'm thinking about all of this, and -- so I'm thinking about all of this and I'm coming up here to the podium, and I'm thinking, I destroyed Bob BACHET's career. I embarrassed "The Arizona Republic," and I cost innumerable students ex-number of hours in class because Gordon Jones and I are going out to bet the daily double, and I'm getting an award from Walter Cronkite. This is like Allen Funt winning a Peabody. Adams Sandler is winning the Nobel Peace prize next year, I'm convinced of it. Well, I can see all of the students who are from the Cronkite school who are here Todd, sitting taking copious notes, thinking of the next scams that will take place over the next few years. I'll talk to you later about this. I've got a few more ideas. But, somehow, some way through all of that, and through trying to fly back to see my girlfriend, now my wife of 36 years, and the greatest girl of all time and doing it on bonanza airlines. How many of you remember bonanza airlines? Bonanza airlines which let you fly for $29 in those years from Los Angeles to Phoenix, round trip, of course, they had the long way you would go from Phoenix to Yuma to el Centro, to San Diego to Santa Ana, now John Wayne airport, but if you really got lucky, you got the express route, which was Phoenix to Blythe to Palm Springs, to Riverside to Ontario. That was only 2:46. So through all of that, to come out with the sheepskin, and such unbelievable experience, and I know that it was mentioned that I had come to visit the campus before enrolling here in 1962, and my father who had researched it very well, new that Arizona state at that particular point had a great radio and television program, and for me, it was a forerunner program, because very few schools around the country offered a curriculum that would enable somebody who wanted to do what I wanted to do, and that was to broadcast sports, to be able to gain practical experience on the air. So on the campus radio station, KSAN, which in those years, I think was called a carrier current station, which meant that if you were not in the basement of Saguaro Hall, you had no opportunity to hear this. But I had a microphone and an engineer, and a partner, and wound up doing probably 40 football games, 100 basketball games and close to 200 baseball games. It might as well have been in those years -- but that's where the experience came from, and that led to the first professional job in Hawaii in the minor leagues and all of the other very fortunate things that have happened to me, but I think back to those years at this school and how -- just how phenomenal it was, and how nurturing it was, and what a great place it was to go to college. It still is. Let's face it. The weather is never going to change. It's just the best. The environment is next to perfect. I'm amazed by, you know, how many students now attend Arizona state. I mean, that is just phenomenal, and a quarter of a million -- roughly a quarter of a million graduates is amazing. It's just great. And it's a school, I think, that keeps you youthful. I've run into a lot of classmates through the years and people who were going to school at the same time that I did, and I don't know, there is a different look about kids who come out of ASU. I don't know whether it's the environment when you're in school or a lot of them continue to live here or -- and the sunshine and all of the rest, and I think it's just everything. I think it's compositely as great a place to go to school as anywhere. To this day, I mean, I think of myself, and I'm coming in from the airport this morning, and I'm thinking about Scottsdale Road. I mean, J.B.s, where Waylon Jennings actually got his start. That's how long ago it was. And I was in school at that particular point, and you feel -- you don't feel your age in any respect. I mean, right now, I feel so young, I'm ready to call up when I leave here -- I'm ready to call up the Republic news room and tell them about Clint Romas' grandson. [ LAUGHTER ]

>> Al Michaels: You know, I looked at the list of people who have been accorded this honor. I just -- phenomenal, from Frank Stand and William Bailey at CBS all the way through the years of Bernie Shaw, Ted turner, George Will, Helen Thomas, and one of the people on the list is the man who hired me at ABC Sports in 1976, and that was Ruun Aldridge who won this award. And I saw a tape of Ruun's speech and it brought back to me you know, everything that this craft, this business is all about. And I extended not only to just sports or limited to sports, but I extend it to news as well. He taught us that it's about human beings. There are stories about human beings. They are all about human beings, when it comes down to it, and especially in sports where they play the games. Interests there is a lot of strategy involved and excitement and all of the rest, but at its very core, it's all about the people. The people involved, and to get your audience involved, you have to make the audience understand and appreciate and love or maybe even dislike the people that they are watching. But just give them a reason to watch, to care, to think about what it is that they are watching and what would make this different than any other game. And that has stood with me and still does every time I'm on the air, because you are going to come away in a football game and they are going to play four quarters and it's 11 against 11 and we're going to do 23 minutes of commercials and 15 minutes of promos, but the people keep changing. To the students, I would say this, that you can major in journalism or radio and television or mass communications or public relations, but I know Tom Johnson stood up here from CNN in 1999 and told you that the most important thing you could do is read, and that is what I tell every kid who wants to get into this business, and most of them who want to do this -- they want to do it for the same reason I did. As a kid you loved it. You are excited by it. Maybe a parent took you to a game at a very early age. It's electric. It's fun. You get in for free. You get to see all of the games, and I mean, that was the impetus for me, what better thing can there be where to have a job where you got to free and you went to every game and got to travel with the team. It's not just about sports. Sports is about everything now. You have to know a little bit about medicine. You have to know a little bit about the law. You have to know a little bit about religion and philosophy and finance and all of the rest, because it's not just second down and 7. And so for anybody who wants to go into any of these disciplines, you have to read, and you have to read -- you have to read things and pour over stuff that bores you just so you have, when the opportunity arises, the ability to at least discuss it somewhat intelligently. So, that would be my advice to anybody, any kid coming up right now, and I know that when I look at the students in this room, you are a lot farther along than a lot of other kids going to high school at this particular point who aspire to do things like this, but that is -- I mean, to me, that's the advice. That's the key. In 30 years I've been unbelievable plea lucky to be at a lot of memorable events. In fact, one of the things that came up on that tape that always gives me chills, and I know people tell me it gives them chills as well, is the end of the hockey game in 1980, Soviet union against the United States in the lake placid Olympics. "Sports Illustrated" ranked it as the most memorable sports event of the 20th century. In many ways it was. Not only was it an unbelievable upset, something that couldn't happen in a strictly sports sense, but it went way outside of the world of sports, because it took place in the middle of the cold war it took place at a time when relations between the United States and Soviet union were very cool. It took place at a time when we were threatening to boycott the subsequent summer games in Moscow in 1980, which we eventually did. It place at a time when our hostages were being held in Iran. It took place when the prime rate in this country was close to 20% and we were in the THROES of a pretty deep recession, and there wasn't a real good feeling about things in this country. Two years before, some guy comes out into the field at dodgers stadium, burning an American flag. This one event took us from thinking about burning flags to waving flags, and that's where the USA, USA,USA chant started. And anecdotally, a funny story about what took place up there, most people forget, the Soviet game was the semi-final game. The U.S. still had to beat Finland two days later to win the gold medal. Otherwise, they could have beaten the Soviet union and not even won a silver medal, conceivably. So we have this event that takes place on a Friday night, but it can go down the drain with a loss to Finland on Sunday, and the U.S. in that game trailed Finland 2-1, going into the third period, twenty minutes to play. The U.S. coach as great a coaching job as any coach has ever done, was a very demonstrative, hard-driving, aggressive, loud coach. And he could have peeled the plaster off the walls between periods if he didn't like the way a team was playing. And so you can only imagine what he had on his mind when they went into the locker room down 2-1 to Finland on that Sunday morning. But instead, he said nothing. He said nothing until the very end when the team was gathering itself to get up to go back out onto the ice to play that third period. And he gets up and the room becomes stone silent, and he looks around at each guy, and then he says, if you lose this game, you'll take it to your grave. [ LAUGHTER ]

>> Al Michaels: So they went out and they knocked the door down going out of the dressing room, tied the game within five minutes and then scored a short-handed goal at the end. It's the essence of communication as well. We're in this business. Here is a man who knew exactly what to say at the exact time. I think back, too, to our business has been and where it's going, and I think back to lake placid and one of the things I recall about that is that those players had no sense of how huge this was until they left there. This is 1980. It's only 22 years ago. And the reason is TWOFOLD. Number one, just to condense it, it was the advent of the cable television era. We didn't have cable television the way we knew it. These players would sit in their DORM rooms in lake placid and their window to the electronic world was the local station in New York delivering the news. That was it. They were too busy doing the -- when the network news was on, they were playing or practicing. So they could watch the local news, and in terms of what they could they could read. There was no USA today. There was no national newspaper at that particular point, nothing like that, no computers. So the "New York Times" would serve to be their mirror to the world. And I'm thinking how far we have come, how instantaneous everything is right now, and I think the point that I am getting to right now is that in this business, and especially in addressing the people who aspire to be in it, will be in it, as so many of you young people in this room will be, just keep one thing in mind. Don't worry about getting it first. Get it right. That is is the most important thing I can tell you. And I stand here looking at this man, who through the years always got it right. Nobody cares except maybe a couple of people in the sales department or whatever or the promo department, so they can go out and say we've got it first. Apart from that, nobody in your audience cares. Don't care about giving it first. You must get it dead right and be fair and be honest and frame it and give it reference points and check and double check and triple check, and then you go with it. And forget about who got there first as long as you got there with everything right. It's been a -- this is some thrill for me. I must tell you, to be standing up here, to get this award, to look at the names of the people who have received it and to think back how it almost becomes -- it closes the circa here, because on November 22nd, 1963, I'm on campus and between classes. I have access to a television set, as so many of us in this room learned,, learned about the assassination of President Kennedy from Walter Cronkite who said those words, I can remember that situation, and to think that that was 39 years ago is mind boggling. A lot of things have played out through the years, but I know that one thing that has remained steadfast and it's amazing, because in our business, things come and they go, and they are like rockets and flares and in the night, and they just sort of dissent great, but Walter Cronkite is still the one guy you go to to find out the truth. To this day, to this day. So for me, Walter -- [ APPLAUSE ]

>> Al Michaels: A lot of other things have happened to me, but I'm going to put this right at the top of the list. You are a treasure. I thank you. And I thank the Cronkite School and the great Arizona State University. Thank you very much. [ APPLAUSE ]