Remembering Jim McKay

(NY Times,TV Decoder blog): "Jim McKay, the longtime ABC sportscaster who hosted “Wide World of Sports” for more than thirty years, has died. He was 86.

• As its title suggests, “Wide World of Sports” broadened the definition of sports for many Americans. The Museum of Broadcast Communications has called the “Wide World of Sports” the “most successful and longest running sports program in the history of television.”

Mr. McKay’s triumphant introduction to the program included the lines “the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat,” a statement that became well-known to television viewers. AOL’s FanHouse has posted a video of the introduction.

• Roone Arledge, who later became the president of ABC Sports, called Mr. McKay and asked him to be the host in 1961.

“I knew him to be smart, literate, and quick on his feet — and there wouldn’t be any need for someone to write his copy. He was our man — if I could get him,” Mr. Arledge recalled in his posthumous memoir, “Roone,” published in 2003. Mr. McKay committed almost immediately, for $1,000 per show plus expenses.

• In the book, Mr. Arledge called Mr. McKay a “mainstay of ABC Sports, one of our great and truly classy professionals.”..."

(He taught me the correct pronunciation of the name Jack Nicklaus. It does not rhyme with "laws," rather "us.") sm

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