It was Friday night, Nov. 10, 1989, and I couldn’t sleep. The anticipation and excitement of an opportunity to work for CBS Sports had me wishing the clock would tick faster. I had dreamed of being a play-by-play announcer for as long as I could remember and Saturday was going to bring me closer to that day than ever before.
CBS was in Provo to televise the BYU-Air Force football game, and as sophomore broadcasting major, I was assigned to the talent booth as “The Runner.” I didn’t even know what a runner did, but the fact that I would be rubbing shoulders with the likes of veteran announcer Brent Musburger and former Super Bowl champion Kenny Stabler was all the incentive I needed to grasp the task.
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“Are you our runner?” asked the game producer as I arrived for the early-morning crew call.
“Yes,” I said.
“Great. I need you to take this to Kenny at the hotel and tell him to be here by 11,” he said while handing me a large manila envelope of game notes and Stabler’s media credential.
“OK,” I answered.
My first official assignment for CBS was underway — driving to the Provo Marriott to knock on the door of the legendary, albeit controversial, quarterback that my friends and I had mimicked for years during neighborhood football games.
A little nervous, I reached the double door of Stabler’s hotel suite and knocked.
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No answer.
I waited, then knocked again — and waited some more.
Finally, the silence was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps. In a flash, the door flew open and there he was, standing right in front of me — the great Kenny Stabler wearing nothing but a towel around his waist with a wild head of hair that had been losing its fight with the blow dryer.
“What’s up man?” he asked in a southern drawl so thick I thought I was back on my church mission deep in the heart of Texas.
Stunned, I spit out the message, “I’m supposed to give this to you and remind you to be at the stadium at 11.”
“OK, thanks,” said Stabler and he closed the door and the quietness of the hallway returned.
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Mission accomplished.
Driving back to the stadium I prepped for my next encounter — meeting Musburger.
As a boy, I watched him host “The NFL Today” and when he moved to the play-by-play booth, I grew to appreciate his style and the way he communicated. I wanted to be just like him.
“Hello young man!” Musburger boldly said as he entered the broadcast booth on the top of the press box. He reached out to shake my hand.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Dave McCann!” I answered.
“Fantastic!” He said while gazing out the open window at Y Mountain. “Isn’t this a beautiful place?”
Stabler arrived a few minutes later. It didn’t take long to realize that as a runner I didn’t really have anything to do. So, I stood and watched them work and interact with the production crew for the next four priceless hours.
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I’ll admit, there were moments when I fantasized of Musburger losing his voice and I had to step in and call the rest of the game — but he didn’t. He was as good as ever. I marveled at the way he worked, how he communicated with Stabler and his statistician and spotter as the game unfolded in front of them.
Outside the booth, down on the field, BYU’s Stacey Corely returned two kickoffs for touchdowns and Ty Detmer threw for 334 yards and four touchdowns as No. 21 BYU took down the Falcons and their legendary quarterback Dee Dowis, 44-35.
“You have been watching college football on CBS!” said Musburger as he signed off and headed for the exit. This was it. My last chance to say something profound, but all I could muster was, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Someday I’m gonna see you in New York.”
“You do that, young man!” Musburger said as he walked away.
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I figured he had probably heard someone say that to him a million times, but I meant it. The following summer, I was hired by ABC’s “Good Morning America” as their first college reporter and Musburger switched from CBS to ABC and just like that — we were colleagues on the same payroll — in New York.
It’s been 37 years since my one and only job as a runner, and while the visual of Stabler in a towel is still haunting, memories of that day remain priceless. The ensuing years have included hundreds of broadcasting assignments for me in that same stadium — with many more to come.
The announcement by CBS this week that the network will broadcast BYU’s game at Colorado State at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 19 is significant — both for me and my memory bank and for the Cougars. Not once in all of BYU’s 1,089-football-game history, has CBS put the Cougars in prime time on a Saturday night.
There is great potential for another priceless moment — both for BYU and for whoever is assigned to the broadcast booth in Fort Collins as The Runner. May they all make the most of a very rare occasion.
FILE – In this 1974 file photo, Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler looks to pass. | Associated Press
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
