A look Back: CBS Vs. NBC

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Super Bowl I: CBS Vs. NBC (Aftermath I)
January 26, 1986|By Skip Myslenski - Chicago Trib

The first Super Bowl is over now and Pat Summerall, microphone in hand, is standing in the winning locker room and waiting to go on the air. Packer fullback Jim Taylor, Coke can in hand, is there next to him, and suddenly the voice of CBS director Bob Dailey shouts into Summerall`s headset. ``Tell him to get rid of that Coke can,`` Dailey snaps.

``Well,`` recalls Summerall, ``I wasn`t about to tell that to a guy who just won the first Super Bowl. I`m not going to say that to Jim Taylor. Besides, it was hot in there. Our lights weren`t as sophisticated as they are now and everyone`s sweating. There`s sweat rolling off me and through my CBS blazer. It`s so bad Taylor turns to me and says, `God almighty. You look like you played, not me. Want some of this?` I go, `Yeah. Super.` This is going to be my salvation, my relief, and I take a giant swig out of the can. Well, unbeknownst to me, Taylor has filled it about half-full with whiskey and it`s like a fire going down. I`m gagging, choking, then I hear, `Ten seconds to air.` That`s what you mean when you talk about pressure.``

SHOWDOWN

When the Packers and Chiefs met on Jan. 15, 1967, the game was not known as the Super Bowl and there were over 30,000 empty seats in the Los Angeles Coliseum. Yet there was pressure galore in the wonderful world of television, for there were two networks on hand to carry the affair and they were competing more furiously than the teams themselves. CBS, the network of the old and established National Football League, was set to telecast the game with its redoubtable crew of broadcasters. Ray Scott and Jack Whitaker would each do a half of play-by-play, Frank Gifford would do the analysis and Summerall would be the sideline reporter. NBC, the network of the upstart American Football League that had screamed until it got the right to do the game, would be forced to pick up its rival`s feed and try to do something different with its own experienced crew--play-by-play man Curt Gowdy, analyst Paul Christman, sideline commentator Charlie Jones and locker-room interviewer George Ratterman.

The announcers themselves found the rivalry ridiculous, but their bosses took the competition seriously and spent the week before the game plotting secret strategy. CBS felt it had to win the ratings war to defend its honor and, recalls Gifford, ``To me it was a joke, all these guys running around talking about ratings.`` NBC felt it had a chance to grow into something more than the new kid on the football block and, recalls Gowdy, ``All during the game the late Carl Lindemann (then the head of NBC Sports) was in the truck calling the ratings services. Those guys were really something.``

Those guys were also unhappy with the situation. CBS was mad that NBC was involved and, says Gowdy, ``argued that they`d been in the NFL all these years, who are these new guys? NBC said they`d put money in the AFL and so deserved to be there.`` NBC was upset with CBS` telecast philosophy, which declared the best seat was on the 50-yard line so all our 11 cameras will be positioned at different levels of that spot in the stadium. To give its presentation a different look, says Jones, NBC ``put a camera in our mobile unit, which took a tight shot of the shot CBS put on the monitor. Then we`d punch it in and replay it as our closeup shot. That way we had something different.

``It was very competitive all week long, and I can remember there was a fence up between the trucks in the compound. It was the first time for a pool feed in sports, and it got to be like the space launches. There were meetings every day between the two networks, and they were hysterical. It was like your first high school dance, remember, where the girls were on one side of the room, the boys on the other. They were those kinds of meetings. Then we`d go and try to figure out how to screw CBS, and you knew they were doing the same thing. There was as much a rivalry between the networks as between the leagues.``

Says Gowdy: ``It was sort of like Arabs trying to sneak into the tent of a visiting tribe.``

THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

``We really didn`t have a cast of thousands at the game as we do now. The only people who were there were the ones who worked,`` recalls Jones. ``I don`t remember there being a network party and the commissioner`s party, which is now the hottest ticket at the Super Bowl and draws what, three, four thousand people, was a cocktail party for 200 up on the mezzanine of the L.A. Sheraton. And I remember (Packer coach Vince) Lombardi, he was in complete control, even with the NFL. They wanted him to work out in L.A. He said no and worked out in Santa Barbara.

``The only thing we (NBC) did with Lombardi was on the Monday before the game. I flew in Sunday night from Miami, drove to Santa Barbara Monday morning and did a 5-minute interview that has to be the worst I`ve ever done. Everyone was scared to death of him. I was scared to death of him, and you can`t do an interview when you`re scared. My questions were very quiet, very tentative, and when he got tired of me, he just got up and left.``

``I kinda had an in,`` recalls Gifford. ``I was a very good friend of Lombardi, I`d played five years under him in New York, and I looked at films with him during the week. He kept telling me how tough Kansas City was going to be. I kept telling him how ridiculous that was. But he was scared. He kept getting calls all week from NFL owners. They were kinda casual at first, but at the end of every one, the caller would say: `Make it big, Vince.` ``

``I remember the curiosity factor, this was the game for bragging rights,`` recalls Gowdy. ``I remember I had a great curiosity. I really looked forward to that game. Paul and I had started doing the AFL in 1962 and you could see the league growing, signing a lot of skilled players and getting better and better. I wanted to see how they`d do against the NFL. I remember Hank (Stram, the Kansas City coach) was always confident he could beat them.`` ``My dad and NBC were in the position that whenever they got equal billing with CBS--which was the football network in those days--they accomplished a lot,`` recalls NBC Sports executive producer Michael Weisman, whose dad Eddie was then the NBC Sports publicist. ``So I remember the thing my dad did; he arranged a tale of the tape between the two broadcasters. It was literally a comparison of the equipment, the amount of cameras, number of tape machines, whatever, whatever, and then he broke down the strength and weaknesses of the announcers. Gowdy against Scott. Christman against Gifford. Jones against Summerall. The thing ran in papers across the country.``

PREGAME

``Since we were both telecasting the game, we had to make the pregame different, that`s where we were going to get our scoop,`` recalls Gifford.

``Since I was a friend of Lombardi, he agreed to go on TV with me just before the game. That was going to be our scoop. So just before the game he brought his team out of the locker room, and I`m there holding my microphone in front of a camera. I made a motion for him to come over. He shook his head no. I dropped my mike and ran over and got him. He was scared to death. I remember two things about that moment. He was trembling, which wasn`t anything new, he did that when he was with the Giants. And second, Paul Christman saw me talking to him, and I can remember seeing him out of the corner of my eye. He came running across the field and stuck his microphone in front of Vince. So we didn`t get our scoop after all.``

``I had my little card table and microphone set up on the right 35-yard line. Pat was on the left. Green Bay was on our sideline. Kansas City opposite us,`` recalls Jones. ``Now I knew a lot about the Chiefs, but very little about the Packers, so I went up to Pat and said, `People at home are not going to be watching two TVs, so why don`t you and I work together. If something happens to the Packers, find out, tell me about it and we`ll both tell our trucks at the same time. I`ll do the same thing for you if something happens with Kansas City.` He said great. . . .

GAME TIME

``. . . Now it turns out the first big thing to happen is (Packer receiver) Boyd Dowler is injured and he comes to the near sidelines. They take his jersey off, take his shoulder pads off, start working on his shoulder. Then they wrap his shoulder and he doesn`t put his uniform back on. Now I look down at Pat, and Pat`s just sitting there. So I walk down to him and tell him, `Go find out what`s wrong with Boyd Dowler.` He says he can`t. The game`s still going on.``

``I knew Lombardi and I played for Lombardi, but I knew he wouldn`t let anyone connected with the broadcast close to his bench. He would have chased me away,`` says Summerall.

``So I tell him to go ask the trainer, which he does,`` says Jones, ``and he learns Dowler has a shoulder separation, is out for the game and will be replaced by Max McGee.``

``As you may recall, Max McGee caught two touchdown passes that day,``

recalls Ray Scott. ``Well, Max and I were close. He knew he could tell me things and I wouldn`t reveal them. We ran into each other the night before the game and he says, `Come over here.` We looked like a couple of conspirators from Casablanca. Now, Dowler had hurt his shoulder in the Dallas (NFL championship) game and it hadn`t been revealed. So McGee tells me, `I don`t know if ol` Max will get in the game, but if I do, they`ll never get me out. Ray, I`ve been studying film and, Ray, I`ve found me a cornerback I`ll have for breakfast, lunch and dinner.` `


Continued below.....

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Super Bowl I: CBS Vs. NBC (Aftermath II)
January 26, 1986|By Skip Myslenski - Chicago Trib

``Lombardi wouldn`t let anyone in the locker room right away, so I`m in this hallway with a crush of other people,`` recalls Summerall. ``Then I hear, `Coming to you in 30 seconds.` I can`t talk back, the guys in the booth are still talking, and I`m wondering what the hell to do. Finally, there are 10 seconds left and (director) Dailey says, `Relax. The commissioner is right behind you. Turn around and ask questions.` It was so crowded I couldn`t see behind me. But I turned around and there was Pete Rozelle. . . .

``But one of the most humorous things happened once we got inside. We`d cut a deal with NBC that we had the postgame and I was the host. Part of the deal was I had control of the mike, but they could have a representative in the locker room with me and he would have a chance to ask questions. So George Ratterman is with me in the Packer locker room, and we`re up there with Jim Taylor, Bart Starr and Elijah Pitts. Finally Dailey says I`ve got to let Ratterman ask a question, so I say George has got a question and hand him the mike. The next thing I hear is Lee MacPhail, my boss, screaming from the truck: `We didn`t say give him the microphone. We said let him ask a question. Now get that freaking microphone back.`

``It was a very, very heated rivalry. It was more intense than the game itself.``