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With those words, ABC sportscaster Jim McKay told the American public that eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were murdered in Munich.
Now McKay himself is gone, passing away this morning at the age of 86.
Nothing bores me more than watching sports on TV. Nothing. I'd rather watch The View than watch TV sports. Really. Oddly enough though, I watch the Olympics voraciously; as if all that pent-up male need to watch sports on TV encapsulates itself into two weeks every two years. I'll watch everything from curling to dressage to the athlete biographies. I'll even record one event while watching another. For some unfathomable reason I can even watch softball.
I think Jim McKay has a lot to do with that. For those of you old enough to remember what Jim McKay and ABC brought to us for four weeks every four years, you can't help but remember that time fondly. McKay brought an elegant dignity to sportscasting. I think of him as the Walter Cronkite of sports. He was genuinely enthused about the events he covered, there was no question in that, yet he wasn't bombastic. He wanted to bring us details, to explain what we saw, be informed about the people and places. Jim McKay was a journalist first, explaining complicated matters succinctly and with such quiet enthusiasm that he never came across as patronizing.
The Olympics were Jim McKay's best moments, "From the thrill of victory, to the agony of defeat." I am barely old enough to remember to Munich. I had no concept of what had happened beyond that some people were killed in a place called Germany. McKay brought the news to America with the care and concern of a dear friend calling to tell you a loved one had died. In later years he would be with us through many more Olympics, joyfully showcasing even the most mundane and unpopular events. McKay could do that because every event for him was special. It didn't matter if competitors would become household names or if the sports themselves were popular, these were men and women, famous and obscure, competing on the world stage and somehow, McKay's respect for all of them made you respect them too.
For a long time I kept hoping that the Olympics would return to ABC but that hasn't happened, and now my main reason for wanting that return has gone. Bob Costas is a nice guy, but he's no Jim McKay even though he tries very hard to model him.
I'm very sorry for those of you who don't remember him. You missed one hell of a class act.
Now McKay himself is gone, passing away this morning at the age of 86.
Nothing bores me more than watching sports on TV. Nothing. I'd rather watch The View than watch TV sports. Really. Oddly enough though, I watch the Olympics voraciously; as if all that pent-up male need to watch sports on TV encapsulates itself into two weeks every two years. I'll watch everything from curling to dressage to the athlete biographies. I'll even record one event while watching another. For some unfathomable reason I can even watch softball.
I think Jim McKay has a lot to do with that. For those of you old enough to remember what Jim McKay and ABC brought to us for four weeks every four years, you can't help but remember that time fondly. McKay brought an elegant dignity to sportscasting. I think of him as the Walter Cronkite of sports. He was genuinely enthused about the events he covered, there was no question in that, yet he wasn't bombastic. He wanted to bring us details, to explain what we saw, be informed about the people and places. Jim McKay was a journalist first, explaining complicated matters succinctly and with such quiet enthusiasm that he never came across as patronizing.
The Olympics were Jim McKay's best moments, "From the thrill of victory, to the agony of defeat." I am barely old enough to remember to Munich. I had no concept of what had happened beyond that some people were killed in a place called Germany. McKay brought the news to America with the care and concern of a dear friend calling to tell you a loved one had died. In later years he would be with us through many more Olympics, joyfully showcasing even the most mundane and unpopular events. McKay could do that because every event for him was special. It didn't matter if competitors would become household names or if the sports themselves were popular, these were men and women, famous and obscure, competing on the world stage and somehow, McKay's respect for all of them made you respect them too.
For a long time I kept hoping that the Olympics would return to ABC but that hasn't happened, and now my main reason for wanting that return has gone. Bob Costas is a nice guy, but he's no Jim McKay even though he tries very hard to model him.
I'm very sorry for those of you who don't remember him. You missed one hell of a class act.
He had been the host of ABC's Wide World of Sports since the days of black and white. But it was on that tragic day, Sept. 5, 1972, that he became the very image and voice of the Games—Mr. Olympics.
Something in his tone and demeanor spoke to people's hearts during those long hours when everyone waited for word of the hostages' fate. Was it the sound of solace in his voice? His reassuring manner? The sense that he could be trusted in a moment of crisis? Probably all of these. The fact is that when McKay's shoulders fell and he announced plaintively, "They're all gone," the mantle had been conferred on him. He's an enthusiastic man, a bright-eyed optimist who forever sees a medal being won, not lost. Yet it was the tragedy that let him be seen as he'd never been seen before.
When the terrorists struck that Tuesday morning in '72, McKay had just come out of the sauna at his hotel and was getting ready to take a swim. It was supposed to have been his only day off during the Olympics. ABC Sports president Roone Arledge could have chosen Schenkel or Howard Cosell to report the story, but he summoned McKay. "There's a steadiness there. Jim has a depth and a sense of the moment," Arledge says. "He has a descriptive ability and can stay on the air for a long time. He would have made a wonderful anchorman at a convention or in an election. In that sense he's very much like [Walter] Cronkite." -Sports Illustrated
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