After the Western Open ended, I went back to Steamboat to share the news with Nancy. On the three-hour drive from Denver’s Stapleton Airport to our small vacation home I had a lot to think about. With no more professional obligations keeping us in Dallas, we could move anywhere we wanted to. As much as I enjoyed the convenience of living in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, cruising along Interstate 70 through the mountains, enjoying the vistas from atop Rabbit Ears Pass and all along the route, an idea began to form. I’d first gone to Steamboat Springs in 1971. Steamboat was a skiers’ paradise even then. While it lacked some of the high-end amenities and luxury accommodations as Vail and Aspen, the skiing was world-class, the people friendly, and the home prices manageable. I had returned to Steamboat a couple more times over the years. In 1975 I got a chance to play a round of golf on a newly constructed Robert Trent Jones course, and the experience was mesmerizing. The beauty of the surrounding area, the loveliness of the course, and the gorgeous weather had me hooked.
With my second wife, Kathy, I had bought a simple A-frame house there in 1978. Nothing extravagant by any means, more of a simple chalet, it offered us easy access to the slopes and to town. We’d purchased it with another couple, but when Kathy and I divorced, and the other couple expressed interest in divesting themselves of the investment, I bought them out.
By the time I reached Rabbit Ears Pass and began the descent into the Yampa River valley, I’d convinced myself that Nancy and I were going to become full-time Coloradans. Nancy was thrilled to learn about the change in my assignment and what that might mean for my prospects at CBS. She was less thrilled about the idea of moving to Steamboat. In my mind, it was a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t want to trade suburbia and congested traffic, the threat of tornadoes and excessive heat for breezes whispering among the ponderosa pines and the yellow-gold aspens and bluebird days when the sky is a nearly indescribably beautiful shade of blue? It took me a week, but eventually Nancy saw the wisdom in the move. She was a lifelong Texan and her roots there ran deep. Transplanting her to another locale was going to take time, but fortunately for us, we were able to sell our house in Texas, purchase one in Steamboat, and be moved in by Labor Day of 1984.
If Nancy expressed trepidations, then Frank Chirkinian expressed outright hostility: “You’ll live in Steamboat Springs only until you miss your first golf tournament because you can’t get your ass out of that town.” My commute was going to be more complicated, but the beauty of the place more than made up for inconvenience. Over the years, I had a couple of close calls in getting to my assignments on time. We live here part-time and I still have a deep and abiding affection for the place.
In the midst of all that house selling and moving, I had to go to New York in late July for a press conference. There, Terry announced his retirement, and CBS introduced the two of us as an announcing pair. The event was held at the ‘21’ Club, one of the swankier New York City restaurants. A substantial group of journalists were present, and after Neal Pilson of CBS introduced Terry, he demonstrated the glib and downhome charming nature that would keep him in the business for the next thirty-plus years. For my part, I stuck to my usual script, spoke briefly, and understood full well that no one in attendance was there to hear from me.
Terry and I got a chance to speak to one another a few times before our first assignment. I related to him some of what I laid out earlier—my humble beginnings in radio, my time in Davenport, Iowa, subsisting on Ritz crackers and peanut butter. Terry smiled at those recollections and added that when he was thirteen, he and his family—his parents and his two brothers, Gary and Craig—had lived for a time about thirty miles north of Davenport. That little small-world-after-all connection helped our relationship. In early August, Terry and I received our first assignment. We were to work a preseason game in San Diego. The game was being televised by CBS, and John Madden and Pat Summerall were in the broadcast booth. Terry and I, Dick Vermeil and Frank Glieber, were all there as well. We were there to do a “rehearsal game.” All three teams would cover the game live, but only John and Pat’s version would go out over the air. For us “rehearsers,” our call would go to the production truck, where it would be recorded. Later, CBS management types would listen to it, critique it, and deliver us notes we could use to help us in future broadcasts.
This was a routine procedure for new teams, and if you weren’t able to do well, or you didn’t get with the program and improve based on their feedback, most often you didn’t get another chance. Terry was about to receive a real education. Dick Vermeil is one of the finest people I have known. He brought to the booth the kind of preparedness that made him a success in coaching the UCLA Bruins, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Kansas City Chiefs. The man was meticulous. Almost an hour before game time, he came into the booth Terry and I were sharing. He asked if he could be of any help. He offered to show us his spotting board. This was an absolutely essential tool that broadcasters relied on. The board came in many forms but the information it contained was the same: one side of the depth chart lists the first, second, and third teams of, for example, the Chargers’ offense. On the other side was the opposition’s defense. There was enough space for the broadcasters to add personalized notes and whatever information they felt was germane.
Dick set his spotting board in front of Terry and the poor guy audibly gasped. There in front of him sat a masterpiece. Dick had color-coded his information. The roster information was fairly straightforward, but the “extras” were a marvel. Red indicated information about a player’s NFL career; blue keynoted college history and statistics; green was for high school; magenta revealed something personal about a player’s life—some tidbit about his wife, mother, father, children, hobbies, shoe size, or anything else that might bring that person to life. Terry sat there wide-eyed but silent, nodding like a man who had just been hauled into the police station and was having his rights read to him. He knew the information was important but it was all just too much to take in at that moment.
When Dick exited the booth, Terry stared at me, still not speaking. I watched as beads of perspiration formed on his brow and then all over his face. I believe the term “flop sweat” applied in that instance. Finally, he shook his head. “Gawd-aw-mighty,” he stammered. “Am I supposed to do somethin’ like that every week?”
Terry never approached that level of preparedness but then, few did. Dick’s spotting boards so impressed me that I asked him to send me copies, which I shared with Terry. Terry would fill his out, in black ink only, with minimal information. He was more extemporaneous and that seemed to work well for him. I copied Dick’s color coding. I never got the magenta level in full detail like he did, but his example served me well. In fact, from that point forward, mid-August 1984 to December 2016, when I called the Army–Navy clash, my last NCAA game, I used Vermeil’s board. I never totaled all the games during that thirty-two-year span, but I suspect it’s more than a dozen.
Terry and I were both new kids in the booth, and I like to think that played a part in our standing with the network. Making the transition from radio to television was fairly easy. The audience, obviously, had the visual component in front of them, so I just had to be less descriptive and keep things more fact based. Terry was rough around the edges, and rough in the middle, too, but that was to be expected. Today, new analysts are schooled, taped, analyzed, retrained, and all the rest. Terry was thrown into the pool in the tried-and-true sink-or-swim method. He thrashed around a bit but never drowned.
In baseball terms, we were the seventh team in a six-team rotation. John and Pat were at the top of the heap—deservedly so—and got the games of greatest interest for the week. Terry and I toiled in relative obscurity. We were assigned what were called “point-to-point” games—those that were only being broadcast in the areas nearby the two teams playing. Our first assignment in 1984 was Detroit at New Orleans. That year, both teams’ prospects for success were bleak. I can’t remember if New Orleans fans had taken to wearing pap
er bags over their heads yet.
The game would be a kind of homecoming for the Louisiana-born Terry. Our first production meeting on the Saturday evening before the game was held in our hotel. Nearly everyone involved was new to working with the others. We made our introductions and moved through the agenda.
At one point, a propos of nothing, Terry spoke up. “Fellas, I’ve got an idea. Let’s invent us a football player.”
I took one for the team and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well, here’s my idea. You all know what happens. In every punting and kicking situation everybody gets told the name of the kicker or punter and the return men. But when those collisions take place in the middle of the field, nobody is really sure who is doing what to who.”
He paused briefly. He was making some sense.
“Hell, we’re only going to be seen by a few thousand people, several cowboys, some pigs and sheep. Let’s have some fun!”
Fun meant creating a faux football player. He was the guy we’d credit with being involved in those special teams tackles. Regardless of who was playing, Willie Anderson, a free agent defensive back from Colby College in Maine, would be in on the tackle.
I would do the call straight up and then Terry would chime in, “I’ll tell you what, Bubba, that was some lick that Willie Anderson of the Lions laid on the return man. That free agent out of Colby College sure can hit!”
We never mentioned Willie’s number.
The next week we were in Tampa Bay for a game against the Falcons, another point-to-point telecast.
I decided to get in on the action, “It’s fourth down and eight. The Buccaneers are in punt formation. Elmore Leonard is back to punt. He sends it high and deep and it’s grabbed by Mickey Spillane for Atlanta at his own twenty. He’s got some room! The forty; he gets a tremendous block at the forty-five, is across midfield, and is finally tackled as he reaches the Tampa forty-yard line.”
“I’ll tell you what, Bubba, that was a sensational block by Willie Anderson, the free agent defensive back from Colby College in Maine.”
Willie Anderson played in all fourteen games that year, becoming the first player in NFL history to suit up for a different team each week.
We were never found out. I can’t imagine what would happen in today’s branded and packaged NFL.
Things got complicated only once. The last game of the year was the rematch between Atlanta and Tampa. I had to be sure that Willie showed up on my spotting board on the Buccaneers defense this time. Mike Burks, our terrific producer, wanted to present each of us with a memento to commemorate our first year together. We may have been the point-to-point leaders among CBS’s NFL broadcast teams but we had a lot of fun. Mike called the sports information director at Colby College. He wanted to buy eight Colby T-shirts to give to members of the team and present them to us at the production meeting.
He reached the SID’s office in Maine. He introduced himself and his affiliation with CBS.
“CBS Sports! Can you tell me what the hell is going on with you people! We get phone calls all the time from people wanting to know more about some guy named Willie Anderson!”
He went on yelling, insisting that he’d scoured the record books and couldn’t find the guy. Mike felt bad for him, and he wanted the T-shirts, so he confessed to the deception. The SID was a smart man. He realized that the school was getting free publicity. He was also grateful that the mystery was solved. The T-shirts arrived at our hotel room in Tampa. We all wore them to the production meeting—held aboard a yacht owned by the founder of Krispy Kreme donuts—and had a photo taken. I don’t know how Mike got us on that boat, but like any good producer, he was a master of resourcefulness.
I don’t know if it is because we were both members of the Third Time’s a Charm Club, but Terry and I got along very well. Our wives also became close friends. Charla even invited Nancy to be present in the delivery room when she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Erin. Nancy was touched by the kind gesture, and she cherishes the experience to this day. Charla always impressed me with her intelligence and her drive, things she put in practice on her way to a law degree and a career as a prominent attorney. Sadly, Terry and Charla’s marriage ended in divorce in 1999. My professional relationship with Terry lasted only two years. At the end of the 1985 NFL season, I was informed that I would be returning to college football. Terry was paired with Tim Ryan for most of his assignments.
I did PAC 10 games with Pat Haden, a brilliant guy who’d quarterbacked the USC Trojans to three Rose Bowl appearances and two national championships. He went to play in the World Football League for a season before joining the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Pat’s decision to play in the WFL was motivated by a desire to take advantage of a rare opportunity: he was named a Rhodes Scholar while at USC and was able to study at Oxford University. Pat’s NFL career wasn’t stellar, but he seemed to have aspirations beyond the gridiron. He earned a law degree, was partner in a firm, and chose broadcasting when CBS approached him at the end of his playing career.
To say that Terry and Pat were a study in contrasts would be an understatement. Pat has a great sense of humor, but I don’t think he would have come up with the “invent a player” scheme as Terry did. Pat’s later role as the athletic director at USC solidified his reputation as one of the real outstanding minds in collegiate sports.
Just as I was given no explanation as to why I was pulled from the NFL broadcasts to the PAC-10 games, in 1988 I was told that Terry and I would be reunited to do the NFL again. The previous year, I’d done a mixture of NFL and NCAA games, but this time would be different. Not only was I back to the NFL exclusively, but Terry and I weren’t going to be seventh of six. We got bumped all the way to number two behind Pat and John. No more point-to-point games, no more Willie Anderson gags. I was thrilled when Ted Shaker at CBS informed me of the promotion.
Terry and I reunited in Gothenburg, Sweden. The NFL had decided that Nordic folks needed an introduction to the game, so they had the Bears and Vikings travel there for a preseason game. Gothenburg is a gorgeous city, situated on the country’s West Coast. It sits on the Götta älv River, and you can ply it and a system of canals as you meander the city. The game was played in 19,000-seat Ullevi Stadium, built for soccer. The stands were not full that night, no matter the novelty on offer. Those in attendance cheered wildly anytime a foot came in contact with a ball. Oh, to be a place-kicker or punter at that latitude. They seemed to give the players extra points for extra-point conversions. Long passes, convoluted runs, and big hits were met with near silence.
The whole broadcast enterprise was a bit of a smorgasbord. Vic Frank, one of our associate producers, had spent a fortune on an opening tease to begin the broadcast. The video began with a map graphic that traced the route of the Vikings to Newfoundland in the eleventh century. We had purchased the rights to use a snippet from an old movie called The Vikings. It featured former Los Angeles Rams standout defensive lineman Deacon Jones. He sat in the prow of a Viking ship clad in furs and armor with a horned hat atop his massive head. I saw the tape prior to broadcast and it was, shall we say, memorable. I will protect the identity of the individual involved in this because this was a rare case of him not doing a wonderful job. Five minutes before kickoff, he stepped outside the trailer for a last-minute cigarette. When he came back in, he closed the door of the trailer not realizing that it had come in contact with one of the reels on the tape deck that held the tease. David Michaels, our producer and Al’s brother, called out, “Roll tape.”
Nothing.
Ten seconds went by.
Twenty seconds went by.
In living rooms across America folks wondered if their sets had gone on the fritz as they stared at the black hole in front of them.
“Say something!” Dave yelled at me through my headset.
“About what?” I asked, nonplussed.
“Just talk. It’s what you’re paid to do.”
For the next what seemed fo
rever but was likely only a minute or so, I entertained America with facts about Gothenburg, my family’s coming to America, and a list of states I knew that one Lundquist or another had settled in. Gratefully, that bit of ad lib work done, I introduced Terry and we got to talking about football. The Vikings wound up winning, 28–21. To celebrate the discovery of a small but hardy band of Swedish fans of American football, the network had set up a celebratory postgame buffet at our Sheraton hotel digs. The Bradshaws and Lundquists found a corner table and began reminiscing and filling one another in on the events of our lives from the last two years.
The subject turned to Terry’s thoughts about his possible induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was a four-time winner of the Super Bowl and seemed a lock to enter. At least I thought so. Terry thanked me for the vote of confidence. He then mused about whom he might ask to present him on that future date. Art Rooney, the beloved owner of the Steelers, was his first choice but was in poor health. Terry crossed him off the list. Most everyone knew that Terry and his head coach, Chuck Noll, did not see eye to eye. Terry ruled him out.
What a lot of people didn’t know was that with the exception of Mike Webster, his center, Terry had not gotten close to many of his teammates. Choosing any one of them wasn’t feasible. He thought of his father, but the man had never given a speech in front of a large group. Terry wanted to save him the anxiety of doing so and allow him to just enjoy the day.
“Bubba,” Terry said, eyeing me, “you might be the one.”
That “might” hung over us awhile longer. Nancy and I hadn’t given up on Dallas completely. We purchased a small apartment, a winter escape when Steamboat’s weather was proving to be too much. The Bradshaws were living in a rental home in nearby Irving while their permanent residence was being built. We gathered for Christmas dinner. The Hall of Fame voting was coming up in a few weeks. Terry did as he had in Sweden. He listed and crossed off candidates one by one. Finally, turning very serious, he said to me, “Verne, you’re my guy.”
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