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This is Retro Sports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.

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Tomorrow the curtain goes up on the 1953 college football season.

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And with it, NBC inaugurates its 26th year of broadcasting, the most colorful of these weekly games.

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Ordinarily, when we speak of the greats in the world of sports, we are referring to the athletes themselves.

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The men who could sock the hardest, run the fastest, hit a ball the farthest.

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The men, yes, and women who have become legends, unexcelled in their fields.

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The undisputed champions.

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Tonight we deviate a little to talk about a man who didn't actually participate in the game, but who was nonetheless a champ.

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A man who made an immeasurable contribution to the world of sports.

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A man who, like the other greats of his era, has also become a legend.

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As famous as the events he described.

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A man and his unforgettable voice.

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What do you do, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience? This is Graham McNamee speaking.

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Yes, that's a voice we'll never forget.

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For years the most familiar, the most popular voice in radio.

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There's a younger generation today who can't remember Graham McNamee as the nation's pioneer sports announcer.

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But those among us who have hair that's thinning a little, or is touched with gray at the temples,

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remember full well what he meant to us in the days when radio was the miracle of the age.

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We look back with nostalgia to the turbulent 20s, perhaps the most colorful era in the history of sports.

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Those with the ears of the sports titans, the Goliaths and the Sampson's.

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It isn't my intention to detract from the deserved glory of those supermen,

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but I can't help wondering how much Graham McNamee must have contributed towards securing their position in the Hall of Fame.

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There was radio, and there was McNamee.

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With radio, the newest wonder, the public was for the first time brought into close touch with the game.

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There was a wondrous thrill in the roar of the crowd, the crack of the bat, the timekeeper's bell, the referee's whistle.

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And Graham McNamee's broadcasts were dynamic, colorful and picturesque.

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With his overwhelming enthusiasm, his vivid imagination and descriptive ability,

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he made it possible for the listener not only to hear, but actually to visualize the action taking place.

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And Graham McNamee became a radio tradition.

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His voice, his every inflection became known to millions.

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He was heard by more people than any voice the world has ever known.

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And so tonight, on the eve of this new football season, we'd like to look back,

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to recall some memories of the man who was the patron father of the sports announcers.

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Some men choose a profession. Others just seem to drift into one.

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But who can say that their steps aren't guided by destiny?

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Back in St. Paul, when Graham McNamee was just a youngster, his ambitious mother decided to fit him for a musical career.

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She had been a singer with a voice of delightful quality, and she longed to carry on her own career through him.

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She started him early at the piano, which like almost any normal healthy boy, he detested.

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No, no, baby. Now take it again from the beginning.

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Ah gee, Mom, isn't my hour up yet?

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No, you still have fifteen minutes. Come on, baby, take it once more.

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Now, this is the way it should go.

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Now, you see how it should be? It goes from A to F sharp.

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Here's what you're doing.

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You're going from A to F natural.

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There, now you try it.

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Ah, heck, who wants to learn how to play the old piano anyway?

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Now, baby, I want you to be a fine pianist, and if you're to become one, you've got to practice.

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Why, Pat, a rescue practice is as much as ten hours a day.

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Who cares? Golly, I'd rather be a baseball player.

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Baseball player? Now, what kind of profession is that for a man?

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Lots of baseball players make lots of money.

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And maybe I'll be a prize fighter.

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Prize fighter? Why, I never heard of such a thing.

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You're going to become a fine pianist, baby.

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Now, do as I ask, once more.

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All right.

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Yes, it was baby then, and Graham didn't mind so much where his mother was concerned.

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But when the gang one and all took up the cry, well, that was a different thing.

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Okay, gang, let's go.

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Put the old stuff on this one, Graham.

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Suck it in there, boys, suck it in.

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Here we go.

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Strike two.

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Atta boy, Graham. Lay this next one over the old plate now, come on.

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Yes, strike them out.

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Get that in number, Graham.

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Make them hit to me.

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Hey, who's coming second?

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Look out for hit and run.

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Baby.

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Hey, Graham, your mother's calling you.

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What?

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Baby, it's time for you to come in and practice.

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Aw, heck.

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Gee whiz, you can't quit now, Graham.

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Golly, we're still a run behind. Hold pitch for us.

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Yeah, hold pitch for us.

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Ask her if you can play a while longer.

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Yeah, go on, ask her.

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Aw, it won't do any good.

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You can't ask, can't you?

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I said it wouldn't do any good, didn't I?

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Well, Johnny, you can ask, can't you?

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Aw, let him go.

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Baby, it's time to practice.

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Hey, cut it out.

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Baby.

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Baby.

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I said cut it out.

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Unless somebody wants a sock in the jaw.

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Yeah, who's big enough to do it?

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I am.

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Yeah?

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Anybody that plays the pianos are sissy.

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Sissy, huh?

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I'll show you. You can't call me that.

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Hey, hey, look him. Hey, take your pinky there.

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You're gonna hurt his arm.

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He won't be able to pitch in you.

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Yes, that name started many a fight.

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But even when the gang learned better and stopped the kidding,

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he would leave the games unwilling.

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And like Shakespeare's boy, creeped to the old piano

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at the rate of about a mile a week,

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digging his toes in the ground, kicking up dust,

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and shying all the rocks he could find at the kingbirds on the telegraph wires.

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But when he was 18, there came a change.

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He turned from the piano to singing and fairly ate it up.

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Mother McNamee, still ambitious for him, and with an eye on bigger things,

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decided the big town was the place to be.

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New York, the place where the big things happened.

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And this was the move that indirectly led him to radio.

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The going was tough at first.

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Their small savings dwindled rapidly,

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but the young voice student from St. Paul managed to earn a few dollars singing here and there.

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And one day in the spring of 1923, he strolled up Broadway,

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noticed the sign of a radio station, W-E-A-F.

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Curious about this strange new thing called radio, he went in to look around,

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and the program director met him at the door.

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Hello, my name's McNamee. I thought I'd have a look around if it's all right.

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Sure, always glad to have visitors.

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But I'm afraid there's much to see right now. We're off the air.

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What are your broadcasting hours?

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From seven to ten in the evening.

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You're welcome to come back any time when something's happening,

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but while you're here, you might as well have a look at the studios.

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Oh, I like that.

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We have two, one over here and one across the way.

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The small room in between is the control booth.

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That's small.

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You're not in the business, are you?

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The broadcasting business? No, but I should imagine it's pretty interesting, huh?

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Believe me, there's nothing like it. It gets in your blood.

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Right now it's new, of course, but just listen to anyone who takes it seriously,

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anyone who knows what he's talking about, and he'll tell you it's the coming thing.

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Someday it's going to be big business.

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Maybe it would be a good thing to get into.

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Well, it's not so simple. There aren't so many jobs.

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You've got a pretty good voice, nice register.

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Maybe you could be an announcer. But even that isn't so easy.

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What's so hard about it? Just about all I've ever heard any of them do is announce a musical number.

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Well, even that may not be as easy as it seems.

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Sure, anyone can introduce. Yes, we have no bananas.

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But how about Stielernacht, Halliganacht, Le Regiment de Sambre Meuse,

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or all the difficult, hard-to-pronounce names of composers?

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Could you do it without stumbling all over the studio?

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I could manage. I'm a singer, so I'm pretty familiar with the correct pronunciations.

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A singer, huh? Where are you working?

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No place in particular right now. I've been doing some concert work.

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I managed to pick up a few jobs as a church soloist and an operetta and grand opera choruses.

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Is that so? You know, maybe we could use you.

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How would you like to give it a try?

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So Graham McNamee became a radio announcer at a time when announcers were little more than a breathing space between musical selections.

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Along with announcing and singing, he did a little of everything, answered telephones, escorted visitors around the studio,

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coached nervous performers in how to use the mic, and on occasions even used a broom.

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Not long after he joined WEAF, another announcer was hired,

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a man who went on to have quite a career himself as a sports broadcaster

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and who now is one of the top executives in the broadcasting industry.

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His name was Phillips Carlin, and he and Graham McNamee soon formed a working team in radio

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that was to last over the years in a solid friendship that would last an even longer time.

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Their voices were said to be much alike, and their manner of handling a broadcast was identical.

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Each had personality plus, and they put it on the air with vibrant enthusiasm.

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Today, thinking about the new season of football ahead and recalling Graham McNamee's role as the pioneer of football broadcasts,

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I reminisced with Phillips Carlin about those early days in radio and his close association with Mac.

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Many of the stories he told me were so interesting, I wanted to recreate them for you.

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And thanks to Phillips Carlin, I'm able to.

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Where would you like to begin, Phil?

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Well, Joe, you've already mentioned the physical setup of those old WEAF studios.

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Just two studios marked A and B with a little control booth between them, and that was it.

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When I look around at these magnificent NBC studios in the RCA building today,

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it's a little bewildering to remember that our little setup was the beginning of it all.

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I should think it would also give you quite a feeling of pride, Phil,

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the realization that you helped to start it on its way.

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Yes, it does. But the physical setup wasn't the only thing different about those days.

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The whole operating procedure was different, as you can well imagine.

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For instance, many times we'd be broadcasting two programs simultaneously,

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a program from one studio going to WEAF and a program in the other studio going to, I believe it was WMAF.

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That was Colonel Green Station.

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And believe it or not, Mack and I would often go from one studio to the other announcing two programs at the same time.

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You know, it's a wonder that sometimes you didn't say the right thing on the wrong program,

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maybe the wrong thing on the right program.

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I don't think that ever happened, but sometimes we would get the switches mixed up

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and send the wrong program to each station.

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I want to tell you something about that little control booth, though.

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That was where we had to stay most of the time,

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and I do mean it was little, about four feet wide and seven feet long.

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There was no ventilation.

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The only openings were the two doors leading into the two studios.

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Of course, they had to be kept closed because the broadcasts had to be going on.

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Well, Mack and I rigged up our own cooling system.

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Every day we bought a hundred pound cake of ice, which we set in a big pan on a stool

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and let an electric fan blow across it onto our legs.

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It took the hundred pound cake about three hours to melt.

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In three hours, well, it was just about the length of your broadcasting day, wasn't it?

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Yes, we were on the air from seven till ten in the evening.

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Managed only to keep the booth bearable.

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But one day someone gave Mack a big fish,

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and he put it on top of the cake of ice to keep till he finished work.

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The only trouble was when he left for home, he forgot it.

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I had opened up the next day.

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Well, you can imagine what that booth was like.

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The ice, of course, had melted hours before.

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It was hot as a blast furnace, and that dead fish.

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Maybe it was my imagination, but I don't think we ever got the smell out of the place.

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You sure it was the fish that was responsible, Phil?

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Couldn't have been the programs you were broadcasting in those days?

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You know, I never thought about that. Maybe you got something.

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I was kidding, of course.

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I remember, Phil, they called you and Mack the touchdown twins back in those days, didn't they?

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Yes, for two reasons, perhaps.

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For one, we worked so many broadcasts together.

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And secondly, there was quite a similarity in our voices, such a similarity,

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in fact, that listeners often made bets as to whether the announcer was Mack and me or Carlin.

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But the similarity worked to our advantage on some occasions.

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Well, how was that?

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Well, for example, Mack signed a contract to narrate the Universal Newsreel films.

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He was the first of the celebrities to be signed for such a job.

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And if you remember, it started to trend.

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Oh, yes.

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There'd be times when Mack wasn't available, and when he wasn't, Carlin did them,

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with no one actually being the wiser.

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I know this is a bit difficult to answer,

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because you and Mack worked so many big football broadcasts during the 20s.

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But what are some of the outstanding ones that you do remember?

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Well, that's something of a poser, Joe.

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Our football broadcasts were confined almost entirely to the Ivy League,

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Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Army, Navy games.

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The big intersectional games hadn't come into their own then.

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They came later along with the era of the sports specialist and statistician,

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and with them the stature of the sports broadcaster has grown.

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Till now it's a highly specialized and highly competitive profession.

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I do recall one game very vividly, though,

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not only because it was a great gridiron battle,

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but also because of an incident that happened.

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What game was that?

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The Harvard-Princeton game in 1925.

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It was a cold and frosty day,

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and I was handing Mack our thermos of hot coffee,

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just as Jake Slago cut loose for an 84-yard run.

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I got so excited I dropped the thermos through a crack in the stand.

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Later, Mack expressed his disgust in pretty strong terms,

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not with Jake's run, of course, but with mine losing our coffee.

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As a result of his somewhat pointed observations about it,

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we got an unexpectedly large response of mail.

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You mean the mic was open?

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Naturally.

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Wasn't it always in those days when you said something

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that wasn't supposed to go out over the air?

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Yes, I've heard rumors to that effect.

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Maybe you can tell us something about the pre-broadcast preparations

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back in those days.

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Well, frankly, there just wasn't any pre-broadcast preparation.

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We didn't approach the game the way the experts and statisticians do today,

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which I quickly admit enabled them to make a broadcast more interesting and accurate.

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Back in those days, we were lucky to have a list of the players

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and a couple of spotters.

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Everything was ad-lib, and in that department Mack was superb.

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He had great imagination and tremendous enthusiasm.

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In fact, his enthusiasm at times was so overwhelming, it got him in trouble.

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You mean when he had the wrong fighter taking a right cross to the jaw?

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Yes, or the fullback going through a right tackle when actually it was the quarterback.

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But it was that same enthusiasm that gave the listener the color,

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the feel of the crowd, the intensity of the atmosphere,

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the illusion of being present at the scene.

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Well, Joe, I know you're particularly interested in Mack's football broadcast tonight,

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but I would like to mention the sports event that started him on the road to sports broadcasting,

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the first one he did.

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Well, go ahead, Phil, we'd like to hear about it.

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Well, just a few months after Mack joined WEAF,

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it was decided as an experiment to broadcast the middleweight championship fight

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between Johnny Wilson and Harry Greb.

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Well, nobody knew exactly why, at least of all Mack, but he was given the assignment.

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Before the fight, he was a nervous wreck,

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more shaky than either of the fighters could possibly have been.

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He had gone to each of the training camps and made copious notes.

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The afternoon of the fight, he went to the polo grounds and made more notes.

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But that night, when the fight actually started, and they said,

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Mack, you're on the air, he tore up all the notes and got down to the business at hand,

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and he put all his wide-eyed wonder and enthusiasm into his description.

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That was really the beginning of radio as a sports covering medium

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and Mack's beginning as a sports broadcaster.

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Must have been quite an experience for him, a novice stepping into a spot like that,

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which scared the pants off many a seasoned veteran today.

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Well, Mack didn't scare easily, and just a few weeks later,

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he was called on to broadcast the World Series between the Yankees and the Giants.

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I remember that. One game was held up 60 minutes by a downpour,

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but Mack draped his coat over the microphone to shield it from the rain,

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and he ad-libbed for the full hour.

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That's right. They didn't have any snug broadcasting booths then.

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And because he did such a great job of those broadcasts,

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they sent him out to do the first broadcast of the big football games,

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and from that time on, whenever something big and exciting happened or was scheduled to happen,

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whether a sports event or a political event, a catastrophe or a convention,

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an interview with a visiting potentate or the president, Mack was on the scene.

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In spite of the fact that he was called on so often to handle outstanding special events,

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sports broadcasting was his first love, wasn't it, Phil?

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Yes, Joe. Mack was the pioneer, the trailblazer in all the fields of radio announcing.

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But first and last, he loved sports best.

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I wonder when it was after that chance visit to the old WEAF studios

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that Mack began to realize he hadn't found just a spare time job, but an unusual profession.

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After that first World Series broadcast, I think.

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Until then, he still entertained ideas of returning to a singing career.

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But the WEAF program director was right. Radio gets into your blood. It certainly got into Mack's.

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Well, it couldn't have worked out better for both, Phil.

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No, because Mack became Mr. Radio himself.

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He's been called that, also the dean of broadcasters and the voice of radio.

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But the title doesn't matter so much. They all fit.

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Indeed they do. And our thanks to Phillips Carlin for these reminiscences,

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for helping us recall a man and his unforgettable voice.

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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience? This is Graham McNamee speaking.

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Yes, the story of Graham McNamee is the story of radio.

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And the list of events he covered is the history of an era.

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He broadcast the first championship boxing match, the first national political convention,

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the first World Series, the first of the big football games.

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And since this is the eve of a new football season, there is still another first that we especially want to recall tonight.

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The Rose Bowl game, which he broadcast in 1927, which was also the very first coast-to-coast network broadcast.

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In 1941, he revisited the Rose Bowl.

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As in days of old, he sat in the broadcasting booth.

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And during the half, he recalls some of the great moments of the past with Ken Carpenter.

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Graham, what year was it that you first broadcast the Rose Bowl football game here in the Royal Seco?

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Well, Ken, it was January 1st, 1927, a long time ago.

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This is the 15th Rose Bowl game broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company.

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And I was fortunate enough to work in the first four games. And I sure enjoyed the privilege, Ken.

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The 1927 game was a mighty tough one for the coast.

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It was a tie game, 7-7, between the Indians of Stanford and the Crimson Tide of Alabama.

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Alabama blocked a Stanford kick on the Stanford 14-yard line and tied the score up in the last two minutes of play,

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after Stanford seemed to have the game on ice.

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It was a tough break for old Pop Warner, the Stanford coach,

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since his team had treated the Alabama boys pretty roughly all afternoon.

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In that game, Stanford sure showed three great backs in Hoffman, Hyland, and Vogue.

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In 1928, Stanford beat Pittsburgh 7-6, Hoffman's toe winning the game with his conversion after touchdown,

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after fumbles by each team had resulted in touchdowns for the other.

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Well, that 1929 game was a pretty wild one, wasn't it, Graham?

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Wild, Ken? Yes, that was a tough one.

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That was the game that produced the most talked-of play in football of all time.

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When the boys from Georgia Tech took the California team 8-7.

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Roy Regals, the California center, scooped up a Tech fumble deep in Tech territory.

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He got bumped around a bit, finally got squared away, and he saw a couple of goal posts and started for home.

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Unfortunately, it was his own home, Ken, and not the opposition's, and how he did go down that field.

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The crowd was simply stunned into utter silence.

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They were unable to believe the awful thing that their eyes told them, a man running the wrong way.

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Benny Lomb, that fast California back, took out after him, but Regals was an inspired runner for the moment,

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and Lomb couldn't stop him until he had reached his own two-yard line.

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Lomb tried to turn Regals around and start him in the right direction, but it was too late, Ken,

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and the ball was downed on California's one-yard line, with California forced to kick from deep in their own end zone.

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Regals passed Lomb from kick formation, missed fire, and after the ball had bounded around for what seemed an interminable time

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with 22 men in hot pursuit, the play was finally ruled a safety for Georgia Tech, and those two points won the game for Tech 8-7.

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Wasn't the 1927 game your first on the very important date in the physical history of broadcasting, Graham?

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Ken, it was mighty important, as it marked the first coast-to-coast radio hookup of the National Broadcasting Company,

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and believe me, there was plenty of worrying on the part of telephone and radio officials all the way from New York to Los Angeles.

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It was one of the most important milestones in radio broadcasting.

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Two wire channels were cleared across the country several days before the job, following very divergent routes,

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a regular channel and a spare to be used in case the regular went out for any reason, such as flood or fire or storm or anything of that kind.

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Much thought and a tremendous lot of labor were put into the routing of the two lines,

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and wire equalization tests were conducted for days and days until the engineers were satisfied that the lines were ready for the long strain.

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Why, even the night before the big day, our New York engineer, Gene Grossman, he's now an important sound man in the picture industry and I,

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were called over to the telephone company at Los Angeles and we spent the night there, testing for voice with New York

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and grabbing a few winks of sleep on desktops between tests.

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The nice thing, though, was the fact that on the day of the game, everything worked to perfection,

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and the first NBC coast-to-coast radio network was an accomplished fact.

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Yes, Graham McNamee played an important role in radio history, but he never cared much about fame, nor did he worry about his critics.

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There were few things he couldn't laugh off, but there was one thing he couldn't laugh off.

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Following a broadcast in the spring of 1942, he was stricken with a throat infection,

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and during the days that followed as he lay hospitalized, letters by the thousands poured in from listeners, from friends, and well-wishers.

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Meanwhile, a new organization called the Sports Broadcasters Association was formed, and Ted Husing was chosen to bring a membership pin to Mack,

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and Mack was very grateful. The following night, McNamee died.

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But can a legend die? Can you still immortality?

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Tomorrow, and on many another tomorrow, when the starting gun inaugurates another new season of football,

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old-timers sitting by their radios will again hear, at least in memory, that unforgettable voice.

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How do you do, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience? This is Graham McNamee speaking.

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And so each year, the Sports Broadcasters Association gives to the outstanding athlete the Graham McNamee Memorial Award,

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in honor of the man who was the true pioneer of sports broadcasting.

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Graham was loved by the men in his profession, as well as the millions who knew him only as a voice.

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And so ends our tribute to Graham McNamee, the sports announcer who became as famous as the events he described.

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Be with us next week when the All-American Sports Show salutes Casey Stengel of the New York Yankees, the first manager to win five straight pennants.