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Conversation with Mike Gannon and Otis Boggs
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00:00:48.240 - 00:01:11.970
Yeah. Conversation from the University of Florida. A discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day. Your host is Michael Vegan in Professor of history and ethics and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. Yeah, and welcome to another conversation.
00:01:11.990 - 00:01:30.370
My guest this evening is Otis Boggs. 46 years with W R U F A M on the University of Florida campus, 41 years as the voice of the fighting gators and Otis, one of the most beloved and respected members of the staff of the university. Well, thank you very much, Mike.
00:01:30.370 - 00:01:43.230
I feel quite at home tonight because I'm an arts and science man, so I feel very comfortable. You know that grand to have you Grant to have you here. It's so nice of you to make a step down from radio to television. Hey, listen, this this is where it's at now.
00:01:43.230 - 00:01:58.210
This is where the money is. Well, that's not been hiding. Waiting for radio too long. Remember, I had Bob Edwards on the program a year ago. He of the morning edition on NPR, and Bob said radio is still the class medium. Well, it's still alive and kicking.
00:01:58.210 - 00:02:10.160
I can tell you that because, as you know, Bob and Bob Leach and I do a morning show and actually responsible. That thing has really been tremendous. It's a little different from anything else in radio. There may be a few shows like but not too much.
00:02:10.640 - 00:02:26.990
Well, 46 years in radio on this campus gives you quite a perspective. You go back to the days of small, dynamic microphones and and then the big velocity microphone that always gave you a deeper voice. One of my favorites, Mike, was a little one that called a salt shaker.
00:02:26.990 - 00:02:40.860
Mike, we used to use those on football games, and it was a directional had pretty good quality for a young kid who had a squeaky voice like I did beginning salt. Shaker was a good friend to me. Now I've asked people like Bob Edwards and Red Barber how they got into radio.
00:02:40.860 - 00:02:55.070
How did you get in? Well, actually, I came University of Florida as a chemistry student. I suppose if I had a single out the thing I'm proudest of, I had already passed two years of college chemistry. Before, I was a senior in high school and I was determined I was going to be a chemist.
00:02:55.070 - 00:03:09.250
But a friend of mine dared me to go down and take an audition, and I was familiar with W. R. U F. It was a student operated station for the most part, and so we went down and I took this audition and passed it. And I was interested in sports because I played sports in high school.
00:03:09.940 - 00:03:26.260
And so they were having some audition training programs for prospective sports announcers. And the young fellow named Dan Risk, who later went to California's announcer, was in charge and he would take us out spring football practice and we proceed to call play by play. And it was strictly he was strictly listening.
00:03:26.260 - 00:03:38.160
We didn't have tape recorders in those days, no way of recording. So Dan says, Well, you're doing okay says, uh, Friday of this week they're gonna start the state high school basketball tournament. If you don't have a class at eight o'clock, how about showing up at the gym, which I did?
00:03:38.740 - 00:03:51.760
And, uh, the guy who's gonna do the play by play didn't show up he overslept or something and dance as well. This next game is yours. I almost panicked because here the first thing I was going to do on the air, very first thing was a basketball game.
00:03:52.140 - 00:04:06.270
And I'll never forget the two teams. I was Mulberry against Green Cove Springs, and I don't think the audience could have been any were confused. And I was. That was really a travesty on the radio audience, but it taught me that, uh, you should always be prepared.
00:04:06.270 - 00:04:19.340
Well, I I really had no idea I was gonna do but play by play. But the funny thing happened, I did so badly in my own mind that I didn't go back to the station to learn how to run the records anything. And I bumped in to Dave Russell, who was one of the sportscasters down there.
00:04:19.340 - 00:04:34.330
Dave says, Hey, they're looking for you down at the station. You gotta go down and learn how to run the board. So I was surprised to find out that I still had a chance, and from those beginnings I went on into doing a lot of things, being a disc jockey and doing news and writing programs at WWF spent a great training ground.
00:04:34.330 - 00:04:45.420
It lets you do a little bit of everything to find your particular niche. And it's still doing that today. And I think it's a great thing for young people to find out where they best fit into the electronic media scheme. And it is important to do everything.
00:04:45.420 - 00:04:59.100
Yes, yes. Because you appreciate the people are going to be working with you out there in the work a day world. And perhaps you had the experience of going in early in the morning and turning on the transmitter. All that filling up the log. Yes, we had one called Old Ironsides.
00:04:59.100 - 00:05:12.850
I'll never forget it. It was all metal. Sometimes it would stay on it. Sometimes it would go off. But it was a fun operation. Really. Tell me about Colonel Powell. He was Major Powell, major poet. I'm sorry. That's alright. Upgraded him there. That's okay. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
00:05:12.850 - 00:05:27.970
He was a He was a great guy. He devised the flag code. He was a graduate, University of Maryland. And in World War two, he'd been a pilot. He was a close personal friend of Eddie Rickenbacker. and he'd flown up there. And W R U F came on the air primarily as an educational station.
00:05:27.970 - 00:05:45.370
That is to say, they were actually teaching courses on the air, and I found out that they didn't have too many listeners along those lines, and people wanted more entertainment. So Dr John Tiger, who was President University that time, persuaded Major Power to come down from Maryland and take over the station and inject a little bit of entertainment.
00:05:45.370 - 00:05:57.160
And the only thing they had, they had 28 records, and they've been barred from a furniture store. And they had two turntables that came out of the old Florida Theatre, What he used to run the sound not not on the movie film like they do today, but on on disk.
00:05:57.540 - 00:06:18.400
And so that was a sum total of the equipment. From that point, Major decided he would give auditions and give people a chance, have live shows and he up the entertainment angle of station. And it became very popular here in North Florida. I think, uh, the station went on the air in October of 1928 and it was one of the first seven stations in the state of Florida.
00:06:19.740 - 00:06:40.530
You are known for your broadcasts of Florida sports over four decades. And yet there are many other things about your broadcast career that people don't know about. I think, for example, of your broadcasts of the State Baseball League. Yes, the Florida State Baseball State League. As a matter of fact, I had some fond memories of the Florida State League.
00:06:40.530 - 00:06:57.830
It was a Class D League and Gainesville Hattie team in the league as another charter members and Saint Augustine had a fine club Daytona Beach, Leesburg, Palatka, Orlando Sanford. Those are and we're all teams in the league, and a number of great baseball players came out of that particular league.
00:06:57.840 - 00:07:14.560
And I think I was telling you that if I had to pick one Cinderella story of sports, I would pick one that occurred in the Florida State League. I was privileged to cover the G men on all their home games and road games and would do 140th season and Daytona at a Cardinal affiliation.
00:07:15.140 - 00:07:33.130
And shortly after World War two, a young rookie from Donora, Pennsylvania, came down with the name of Stan Museum. Nobody had ever heard about him and the manager of the club was one of the old time great pictures. Dickie Kerr, who had been involved in the Chicago Black Sox scandal when the series was thrown with Cincinnati in 1919.
00:07:33.130 - 00:07:59.630
And Dickie Kerr was a very astute manager, and he realized that Stan Music it was a pretty good picture. In fact, he was a darn good picture. He won 18 games and lost only seven, But he was also an amazing hitter, and Dickie Kerr used to watch him and said, Hey, Stan, I got to get you in the lineup So he pitched his regular rotation, and every other night he'd be out in the outfield and he had just a fabulous career as a hitter and so much so that, uh, they moved him up.
00:07:59.640 - 00:08:12.270
The Cardinals did not take him to spring training the next year, but they shipped him away from the Florida State Class D League. They moved him up one notch to a Class C at Springfield, Missouri, and he stayed there about three weeks and the Cardinals got into trouble.
00:08:12.270 - 00:08:26.260
They needed some hitting. They were not hitting, so they moved him up, and he never played for another club. He played his entire career, uh, for the ST Louis Cardinals, and ultimately, he made the jump from Class D two major leagues in one year. That's remarkable, started as a pitcher and became one of the great hitters of all time.
00:08:26.260 - 00:08:41.730
So that, I would say, is one of the real Cinderella stories. Didn't Babe Ruth start as a picture? Yes, he did. He did, as a matter of fact, was one of the great pictures of the Boston Red Sox, and the Yankees bought him. Let's go back to some of the great football games you covered here and, uh, around the country for the Florida Gators.
00:08:41.740 - 00:08:53.110
Can you pick out some that are particularly memorable? Oh, sure, I think my very first year it was 1939. I was not doing play by play, but Dave Russell, who was later became a real close friend of mine, was doing the play by play, and I did.
00:08:53.110 - 00:09:10.150
The color for a day and 39 was not a great year for Florida, but they had one of the most unbelievable upsets that I've ever seen. They played a Boston college team that was coached by a man named Franklin, who later became a legend at Notre Dame almost as much as as Newt Rockne himself.
00:09:10.540 - 00:09:29.490
But Leahy only lost one regular season game in his tenure at Boston College and Florida. For some reason, October 12th has been a lucky date for them. They played Boston College on October 12th up at Fenway Park. It was a Friday ballgame, and the Gators were four touchdown underdogs, and they went up and scored early.
00:09:29.490 - 00:09:41.020
As a matter of fact, Lay, he decided he wouldn't start his first team. He started second club Gators, got the opening kickoff and move the ball across the 50 yard line and a young sophomore named Bud Walton through a past Leo Kale hit him for a touchdown.
00:09:41.020 - 00:10:02.430
They kicked the point after, and that was all the scoring. It was to be done that afternoon with Boston College, had a fabulous pastor named Charlie O. Rourke and just a great all around team, and they move the ball inside the Florida 15 yard line on eight different occasions, and the Gators stopped them each and every time on six of those situations, Lad named Fergie.
00:10:02.430 - 00:10:18.010
Ferguson made the stopping tackle, the play that stopped him from scoring. He had five quarterback sacks and individually gave perhaps the greatest individual defensive performance I've ever seen. And Florida went on to win the ball Game seven or nothing, and that was the last regular season game at Les.
00:10:18.010 - 00:10:33.360
He lost at Boston College. He later went on to the Cotton Bowl with his team and beat a great Tennessee team the next year in the Sugar Bowl. And Ray Grace had to be a player on that Tennessee team. So although Florida did not win a conference title until this year, they've had some great football games.
00:10:33.940 - 00:10:48.070
If you go back to the fifties and to the Woodruff era, yes, that is a much maligned period in Florida football. It is. And yet Bob Woodruff. Bob was a kind of a slow talker, and everybody figured that he really didn't know what he was doing coaching wise.
00:10:48.270 - 00:11:01.760
But he was a tactician. He was a great defensive coach. But Bob Woodruff, I would say, did more to build sports in general at University of Florida in any single men, Uh, Florida was just a football school and not a very good one at that when he came here.
00:11:02.140 - 00:11:16.670
But he emphasized not only football but other athletics as well, and he was the one who actually was responsible for starting the increase in the size of Florida Field Stadium. Florida Field only held slightly over 20,000 when he came here, and he increased first the West Side.
00:11:16.680 - 00:11:30.050
And that was the beginning of the enlargement of the stadium that we have today. He did have some. He did some very outstanding things. Football wise. He gave Florida's first bowl team in 1952. Uh, he was one of only two Florida coaches ever to beat Bear Bryant.
00:11:30.050 - 00:11:45.120
He beat Barris Kentucky team in 52 27. Nothing. And it took Florida. The Gator Bowl, which they won from Tulsa. So Bob Woodruff did some very concrete things here in Florida. You would remember Charlie Laprade from those. Yes, indeed, Charlie was an All American. He was Florida's second All American.
00:11:45.120 - 00:12:08.860
I believe Dale VanSickle was the first, but Charlie came over here and was a tremendous football. He played on that 1952 team. That was the first bowl team. Florid uh sickle vansickle hell bent on that famous 1928 2018 red buffet, right? Dale Van Sickle was a very handsome when he went to Hollywood, became quite a Western star and a stunt man and had a very good career in Hollywood.
00:12:09.520 - 00:12:26.280
At the inauguration of President Chris er, I saw General Van Fleet. Yes. What kind of a coach was he? What are your memories of him? General Van Flight. Actually, it comes from a little town where I My dad was a railroad man. Polk City, Florida, and the old Van Fleet residences There he went to summer and institute went to West Point.
00:12:26.290 - 00:12:42.880
He actually was one of the great military men of our history. I would rank him right in there with Eisenhower and MacArthur and some of the others. Not only a great military man, but a splendid football coach. It was not privileged to see his teams. They were a little bit before my time in the early twenties, but I do know that his record was very good.
00:12:42.880 - 00:12:56.120
He upset Alabama on a couple of occasions and, uh, one of his sad points in his career. He went up to play West Point and got beat 14 or nothing, but which was No, no, a bad scar, actually, because West Point was a power in those days.
00:12:56.330 - 00:13:11.250
But he always talks about how he wished he could. It could have beaten the que that stuff at the point. I suppose that one of your great personal memories was seeing the Ray Graves victory over Georgia Tech, and I believe that, I would say, is one of the most dramatic games that I ever saw.
00:13:11.260 - 00:13:32.390
So much drama wrapped up in the thing. First of all, Grace came down. Here was his first year as head coach, and he had been the second head coach, assistant head coach under Bobby Dodd. They had been longtime friends. They were tennis partners. They fished together and piled around together and Pepper Rodgers Bray hired him immediately as his offensive coordinator.
00:13:32.390 - 00:13:48.950
Of course, Pepper had been one of the great stars for Georgia Tech. He'd won the Orange Bowl with a field goal in the last few seconds, and he done spectacular things. So he was up in the booth operating against Bobby Dodd and a picture of the problem Mrs Dodd had because her son had come down to play football at Florida.
00:13:48.960 - 00:14:05.630
Bobby didn't want to go to Georgia Tech, and he'd send him down to Florida a couple of years prior to that, uh, to be with Bob Woodruff. And here he was in the quarterbacking role and he threw a very key pass that afternoon that cared Florida, the winning touchdown young fellow who's now the coach at Jacksonville.
00:14:05.630 - 00:14:21.940
The Bulls? He used to. I used to call him in Fannie, and that was his name, but he's kind of upgraded to infantry now. But Lindy uh, Linde took a pitch out with something like 17 seconds to go from Libertador and took it in for the touchdown, and Florida was still down my score of 16 to 15.
00:14:21.940 - 00:14:39.310
So they decided to go for two that had just been instituted a year before. Lo and behold, a laboratory rolled out and and hit John Macbeth, the fullback in the end zone with a two point conversion and the Gators one at 17 to 16. And I'll tell you, that was probably was the most dramatic football game I've ever seen in Florida field.
00:14:39.330 - 00:15:02.560
I was there, I saw it and It was a very exciting experience and, as a matter of fact, the Ray Graves years all were excited. They were. He had some great wins. He beat a good Penn State team and the Gator Bowl his final year, the 50 the the 69 year when he had Reeves and, uh and Alvarez and, uh, Tommy Difference from Daytona and all that gang.
00:15:02.560 - 00:15:19.720
They had a fabulous football team and ultimately wound up beating Tennessee, the SEC champions. Those were the super soft as the super soft, and they started out against Houston prohibitive favorites against the Gators because Houston was ranked number one in the country at the time You did the game at Florida, they could play from scrimmage.
00:15:19.720 - 00:15:34.370
Res drops back and throws a 70 yard bomb to Alvarez. And from there on, it was just one scoring play after another. People listening in, uh, the athletic department had people from as far away as Jacksonville and ST Augustine here. The game decided it couldn't be true.
00:15:34.370 - 00:15:51.730
They drove over and bought tickets at the gate and came in and saw the second half. That was a fantastic game. It certainly was. Yes, they went on to, uh, to play Tennessee. That was an awkward situation. Yes, it was. It was the situation. I guess the university got a lot of criticism for the way they handled it.
00:15:51.730 - 00:16:20.760
The hiring. And actually, I guess in all fairness, I think Doug Dickey started out with a cloud over his head that never really was cleared out, and it was a handicap for him. But Doug did something that I shall never forget. When I was young, broadcaster in 1939 Dave Russell and I had gone over to orbit to play the War Eagles over there, and that was the day they dedicated, uh, Thanksgiving weekend dedicated Cliff Hare Stadium and the Gators played a really good game, but the wound up in a 77 tie.
00:16:21.640 - 00:16:46.070
We didn't know at that time that it would be 34 years before the Gators would come close to winning at that stadium. It seemed to have a jinx. Uh, they even changed the name to Jordan hereafter. Should Jordan. He and he was a great coach, But in 19 and 73 Doug Dickey took a team that was at the bottom of the SEC in fact had been humiliated at Florida field by Ole Miss and open date, too.
00:16:46.540 - 00:17:06.530
Prepare the wounds and try to get together, and he took them over there and changed quarterbacks. Young fellow named Don Gaffney had great speed and was a great broken field runner. They gave him, gave some speed on the outside, and Don Gaffney simply buffaloed. Uh, the war Eagles dominated them completely, and Florida beat them 12 to 8, and the game was not nearly as close as the score indicates.
00:17:06.530 - 00:17:20.830
It was a great win, and the jinx was broken. Doug Dickey broken. The jinx was broken. But at Auburn, they still said the Gators never won in Hair Stadium. Cliff Cliff here because it's the name had been changed. Well, that, I guess, was the best week here.
00:17:20.840 - 00:17:45.820
But it was a great with what about the win that the Gators had over Alabama at Alabama and in the Doug Dickey. There's another remarkable situation that was a Ray Gray's team that happened in 1963. Read started out the season with a nine no loss to Georgia Tech and Tech Tech, bounced bike and had a good year after we beat them here, and they were always power under Bobby Dodd.
00:17:45.830 - 00:18:01.910
So, uh, Gray was concerned about his ball club, and the next week he played Mississippi State and tied in 99. And then he had a game against Richmond University, which was, you know, a small school, not that much of a football power, but they really gave the Gators a fit in Florida finally won, 35 28.
00:18:01.910 - 00:18:21.740
So now they're going over to Tuscaloosa to play Alabama national champions from the previous year. Third ranked and undefeated at homecoming in Tuscaloosa. No one had ever beaten the Bear at Tuscaloosa, But on that particular day, the Florida had Thomas Shannon in their quarterback and, uh, a young fellow who did a remarkable job as a left handed thrower.
00:18:21.960 - 00:18:45.750
They had Dick Kirk, and they had Bobby Lyle is a field goal kicker, and Alabama's quarterback was a guy who later became quite famous. Named Joe Namath and, uh, Alabama fumbled the opening kickoff and, uh, they regain their composure and didn't give up a score. Then Florida drove down, and a lot of kicked a 42 yard field goal scored half time is three oh, came back in the third quarter in Alabama, still couldn't get anything inside.
00:18:45.750 - 00:19:06.390
The Gator, for the defense was magnificent that day, and, uh, late in the ballgame. Dick Kirk broke a play over the right side and cut back to his left and went 42 yards into the end zone untouched, and Florida kicked the point. And then Alabama finally got things together, and they drove 67 yards with about a minute to go and name with Drove it in for the touchdown, and they went for two and missed the scores 10 to 6.
00:19:06.440 - 00:19:28.060
Alabama tries an onside kick, and Shannon recovers it and kills the clock. When Florida came back to Gainesville that night, there were over 10,000 people at the airport and the highway was jammed all the way back. It was one of the great upsets, and the Bear did not lose another game that Tuscaloosa until his final year, when Mississippi State, not Mississippi state of Mississippi Southern, came in and beating.
00:19:28.240 - 00:19:43.850
He only lost two games in his entire career as a coach at Tuscaloosa. Not only were there 10,000 people at the airport to greet the team, but There was another enormous crowd at the intersection of West University in 15th Street with a bonfire and the police cars arrived carrying wood.
00:19:44.240 - 00:20:00.960
I'll tell you, Gator fans are the greatest. There's no doubt about that. They have tremendous spirit, and the thing that was really rewarding to me make was to see the team this year, a team that came out with good material, and all of a sudden they found out that their their head coaches have to resign.
00:20:00.970 - 00:20:14.170
They don't know what he's gonna be here for the entire season. He's not. They fired at the end of the third game, and a young assistant coach named Galen Hall comes in and never have I seen a team with so much adversity do such a tremendous job.
00:20:14.440 - 00:20:41.560
And Galen and the staff pulled together, And after that opening loss to Miami and the time with LSU, nobody came close to beating him. I think, uh, Florida always had the the tagline of being a team that choked when the big game came along and they played two of their arch rivals back to back and beat them decisively when they beat orbit and they beat Georgia And then they went up against a team that a lot of people didn't realize, really, how good they were in Kentucky, Lexington.
00:20:41.940 - 00:20:57.960
And they beat a very good Kentucky team, a team that had beaten Indiana and later was to beat Wisconsin and wound it up with a victory over F S. You and I understand the New York Times is going to award them their trophy as the national champions, and I think they deserve it in following Florida football.
00:20:59.140 - 00:21:12.300
Laura had some great teams and some great victories, but they never had a team with so much depth, so many good things going for them. The good defense, the great kicking game, the great offense and a team that refused to bow to adversity. It was just a marvelous year.
00:21:12.570 - 00:21:31.180
So you would pick this team as the greatest of all the Florida question, not only because it won the championship because it displayed these other qualities and attributes. It's really remarkable and I my hats are off to Galen and to the coaches who stayed together and fought and scrambled and and and the young fellows themselves, they were.
00:21:31.180 - 00:21:47.490
They were champions in the truest sense I want to get back to you a little bit, Otis and your adventures in the broadcast booth. What's the funniest thing that ever happened to you? Or the most awkward or embarrassing or whatever? Well, I'm sure being a broadcaster, you did the South Carolina Gamecocks.
00:21:47.500 - 00:21:58.680
A lot of people may not realize that, but Mike Gannon was a very fine sportscaster. So when he's asking these questions, he knows what he's talking about. Back in the forties. Yeah, we're back in the forties, you know, when they switched over to two platoon football.
00:21:59.340 - 00:22:14.450
I used to use a board with pens and to designate who was in the ballgame offense and defense. But when they went to the two platoon system, you suddenly had 11 players going off and 11 players coming on 11 going off here and 11 coming. You had 44 players, you know, changing hands all of a sudden.
00:22:14.940 - 00:22:29.290
So I said, Hey, I gotta beat this rap somehow. So I decided I got the other engineers, and Bob Leach also was instrumental in building one of these boards. We built a an electric spotting board. I sometimes call it the Tom Swift spotting board and I had one master switch that I can throw.
00:22:29.300 - 00:22:45.450
And the Florida lost the ball. Their offensive lights went out and 11 defensive players came up. By the same token, the other team's offense came in the defense. Here's a magnificent board. The only thing happened, we went up to, uh, I believe we went to Tulane one year and they happen to have some 220 votes stuff in there.
00:22:45.460 - 00:22:58.160
And my spotter plugged it into 220 instead of 100 and 10. And so we're putting pennies down. And after that moment I said, Hey, the simple way is the best way So I went back to the pins. That would have to be the funniest thing that Iran do.
00:22:58.160 - 00:23:15.690
You remember the role models that we all had. Graham Mac, Maybe using Ted Husing, I must admit, was one of my idols. For this reason, he had the greatest command of the English language. I never heard any sportscaster who could come close. Ted Husing. Oh, I quite agree.
00:23:15.690 - 00:23:33.730
He would begin to broadcast by saying something like and here we are at Mikey Stadium at West Point on the Hudson. The banners of 100 odd colleges are cracking in the autumn breeze. That's right. Excellent description, right? Well, he had a great vernacular. And, of course, among modern day broadcasters.
00:23:33.730 - 00:23:50.360
I think our own Pat Summerall from Lake City does a splendid job. Pat. Of course, he taught English, and he's a very good grammarian, and it's a pleasure listening. Do a ball game. I used to love to listen to to, uh, he and Brookshire when they did games because they were a great team.
00:23:50.370 - 00:24:09.100
Brookshire had a droll sense of humor, and they tell a funny story. At least Pat does. About the first time they went down to the Sun Bowl to cover a game for CBS Radio, and they had to soiree down there below the Mexican border. And, uh, they had quite a few glasses of tequila, and they had this entertainment group in the bullring, and the guy got on the P A.
00:24:09.100 - 00:24:21.770
And he said, We're going to give $500 to anybody who can stay two minutes with the bull you gotta do is come down and just make the passes. And so all of a sudden pets that he looked over in, Brookshire was getting up. He says, Hey, man, what you gonna do?
00:24:22.140 - 00:24:34.260
Rook Shar says, Listen, I'm gonna go down and take that bull and so he goes down three or four passes. He just controls him. You know, the flag. He takes him left. He takes him right. It's two minutes are up. He goes back up and collect some money.
00:24:35.030 - 00:24:50.040
Someone all shook, he said. He says, My God, man, how did you do that? He says, Well, if you've dodged Jim Brown in the NFL for your entire career, that bull doesn't have any trouble at all. No problem. You know, The upshot was, the director thought he could do it, too, and he went down and nearly got killed.
00:24:50.040 - 00:25:06.810
He was out for a whole year. He got gored to the book. I broadcast what may have been the greatest fight ever to take place at a football game. I I don't pride myself on that. I know, and that's the story that I wish you'd tell, because it involves my hometown of Clemson in the South Carolina Carolina Gamecocks.
00:25:06.820 - 00:25:25.670
Well, it was 1948 the State Fair game at Columbia South Carolina, always between Clemson and South Carolina that they had to play it Thursday. That's right, big Thursday, and, uh, somebody sold a lot of counterfeit tickets. I mean by the thousands and all of those people with the counterfeit tickets showed up for the game.
00:25:26.000 - 00:25:53.020
The police had been alerted to look for some tail, tell designer discoloration on the tickets that betrayed them as being counterfeit, and they kept all those people out. And they were a very mad group of people. And they gathered at one end of the field and just before halftime, broke through a wooden gate and poured onto the field by the thousands filled up the sidelines, and in those days, the sideline markers were outside the field of play.
00:25:53.030 - 00:26:21.130
So if you were broadcasting the game and you couldn't see the numbers, it was very difficult to know, uh, where the ball was. Well, these people became increasingly, uh, obstreperous When, uh, finally halftime came and a Clemson fan boy from school, one of the cadet corps, came down onto the field wringing the neck of a gamecock, whereupon both stands emptied out onto the field and fought one of the great.
00:26:21.130 - 00:26:37.440
Maybe I can ever broadcast. I can tell you, Mike, that there's an enmity between those two teams, probably the likes of which don't exist between any other schools. We think the F S U Florida rivalry is intense, but it really doesn't compare to that one. It's amazing how to use as a little kid growing up at Clemson.
00:26:37.440 - 00:26:49.330
The first thing I learned to do was to hate the Gamecocks. You know, I was just about five years old, and that started. But it's a great football driver. One of the nice things I think they did was to make it a home and home situations.
00:26:49.330 - 00:27:08.190
I'm glad they're Carolina has not had all that many good years. I was happy to see them have a good season this year and finally go to a ball game. They had one near Goodyear when Rex Enright was coaching. Steve Wozniak was there. Tailbacks, right? You covered him during the Reckson rights, but he was a great Notre Dame player, you know, so many Notre Dame coaches came down to help formulate football in the South.
00:27:08.190 - 00:27:25.230
I think of Harry, Mayor and, uh, Frank Thomas over Alabama and Rex in right. These were all Notre Dame grads, and I did a lot for football here in the South. You know, I still think a football game over the radio is more exciting to hear than, uh, football game on TV is exciting to watch.
00:27:25.240 - 00:27:37.360
Yes, it is, well, the imagination. Is it worth imaginations at work and the person doing the play by play? Really, They say that that one picture is worth 10,000 words, and that guy in the play by play Booth has to keep pretty busy to paint a complete picture for you.
00:27:37.640 - 00:27:51.480
But there have been some some real masters at it. I, Red Barber did good football. I liked his football, but I thought Red was probably the best baseball broadcaster I ever heard. And it's interesting that one of the better ones today Vince Scully got his start with Red.
00:27:51.480 - 00:28:06.910
Red gave Vince a job in in Brooklyn before the Dodgers ever left, and I don't think Vincent had any, uh, negligible amount of radio experience. But he had a good voice, newest sports well and Red games start. I had read Barbara on the program about a year and very good show.
00:28:06.910 - 00:28:31.500
It was a wonderful interview, just as this one has been. And I listened to you in the mornings sometimes while driving to where I don't drive to work that frequently. But you and Bob Leach have a very exciting early morning camaraderie on radio. That's that's fun for this community and for surrounding counties, and you're just as fresh and exciting now as you've ever been.
00:28:31.500 - 00:28:43.700
Well, thank you. Bob has a great sense of humor. He's very quick on the uptake, and he's a nice guy to work with. He probably does a lot more work on the show than I do, and I get credit for it. But Bob is a real worker, and it's really a pleasure to work with him.
00:28:43.700 - 00:29:01.760
As I say. He has a keen sense of humor, and he was with you on the football broadcaster. Bob did color, uh, and produced the broadcast. In fact, he came back from Key West for that particular role. He came back after that Great Alabama game in 63 is when he came back up to take over.
00:29:02.140 - 00:29:35.360
Well, Otis, what a wonderful chat with you on conversation. Thank you for being my guest honor to be invited. The show. It's one of my favorite shows. Let's do it again. Okay, fine. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Mm. But there that. Yeah. Thank you.