In the final segment with Bob he talks about his favorite interview…a smooth and versatile broadcaster and a few things he has learned about play x play over the years…
JF: Of all the interviews you have done over the years, which one are you proudest of, your favorite interview of all-time?
Bob Miller: It was an interview I did with great track star Jesse Owens, I saw him at a track meet in Milwaukee when I was working there and he was the most gracious person, we were shooting film in those days so you’d have about 12 minutes on 400 feet of film and he was so good that we must have changed film about four times, and I kept asking him, ‘is it okay if you stay and we do some more’, and he said ‘anything you want to do’. He was just perfect and he gave such great answers. Unfortunately when I left that TV station I didn’t take that film with me, I wish I had because it’s one I think about as the most satisfying that I’ve ever done–we talked about his Olympic records, we’d talked about Hitler not shaking his hand…
…we just ran the gamut on why some of his records that he set–five in one day in the Big Ten and lasted so many years and then started to be broken and I thought he’d give me the typical answer ‘records are made to be broken.’ I asked him why his records were starting to fall and his answer blew me away. He said because there’s better prenatal nutrition now for babies than there ever was in his era and he said they come into the world in better shape and with better advantage physically then athletes in his age ever had and so down through the years, those kids with that advance that they had born, got bigger and stronger and faster and started to break his records. It was really an unbelievable answer he gave, but he was really I think of all the interviews, and I’ve had a chance to just interview so many guys, Mickey Mantle and Sonny Liston, Rocky Marciano, Vince Lombardi—that interview with Jesse Owens still stands out in my mind as the most impressive to me because of his answers.
JF: Any current broadcasters, outside of the L.A. market, that when you listen to you go ‘wow’, that person really does a good job and is really on top of things?
Bob Miller: Well I’ll tell you one, I think, really seems to be versatile enough to be able to almost handle any situation and that is Bob Costas. When I watch him he’s up to date and that impresses me that someone can be that up-to-date on all the different sports they assign him to and usually he’s the host of the Olympics, the host of the Kentucky Derby or working on the Stanley Cup playoffs and I think that’s a tough thing to do to keep up-to-date on all of those sports and switch from one sport to the other…
…he started out–really when I first heard about him he was doing St. Louis Blues hockey and I was doing a game for the Kings–the Blues were in Hartford and that’s where the Kings were going to play the next game but we got there early so I went to the game and Gus Kyle was doing color and I said to him, ‘who’s working with you tonight?’ and he said, ‘well I don’t know, there’s a young kid named Costas but he doesn’t always show up,’ and I thought, what? And I guess what happened was they assign him to other assignments so Gus Kyle was doing color and the Blues didn’t know whether he was there that night or not but I look at someone like that who’s really very smooth every time I see him the air.
JF: We all hope to learn from our mistakes, can you remember any mistakes you made early in you career that really taught you a lesson and made you a better broadcaster?
Bob Miller: Well I remember the first play by play I did, I was doing a high school game in Moline, Illinois and I thought I was really ready to do play-by-play, I thought hey I’ve watched football for years and I’ve heard those guys and I got out there and about three plays into the game, in my mind, I thought holy cow, I am lost and I just did an awful job. I would describe he’s in the clear and then he’s tackled and I’m thinking, well how could you say he’s in the clear and then he’s tackled? The game kind of overwhelmed me and taught me that you can’t do too much, when you do play-by-play, you do a certain description of certain plays but you can’t let the game overwhelm you, you can’t let the game dictate what you’re doing, you want to kind of dictate the way you’re going to do it and I did one other game…the station manager came to me and said we’re going to have to make a change, and I knew who he was and I got fired first job I had and luckily this man, his name was G. LaVerne Flambo…
…he was the station manager in Moline, Illinois station and he said come back—I was a student at Iowa at that time …come and do basketball I think you can do that so I’m always so appreciative of the fact that he didn’t say look, ‘we’re going to make a change, you’d better find a different profession’, he was good enough to say, ‘look I think you can do basketball come back in the fall and lets do that’ and I did and just started from there, so he gave me a second chance to realize what type of preparation I had to do and how sharp and ready you have to be for every situation in a game and how you had to manage the broadcast yourself and not get overwhelmed by the game. I think that was a lesson back in about 1958, and it’s a lesson that I’ve never forgotten to this point.
Jesse Owens. What an amazing Olympics he had. Sounds like he was as smart as he was fast. Would of loved to have read Hitler’s mind when Owens beat he prized countrymen. It threw in the face of everything Hitler was trying to prove.
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Duncanz Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 5:14 am
@KC23, This event was a glitch really, an ephemeral exception that proved die goldene regel.
The real proof of der pudding was when a chap named Roosevelt schlepped along and eventually handed him his arsch while revising his racial presumptiveness.
Mind you FDR has his own awkward legacy with the not-so-kosher internment of the Nisei so maybe we’ll just let sleeping Akita lie …
Anyhow, when all is said and done the incomparable Jesse Owens was nothing short of
” Dy – No – Mite ! ! ! ! ! “
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GO KINGS GO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNqR9WU12tc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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GailWeb Reply:
December 17th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
@Gmo, Pretty Kool Thanks!
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luc20rules Reply:
December 17th, 2012 at 5:44 pm
@Gmo, +1, I guess the guy ran out of Black & White film to show the Cryotes WHINNING after the series.
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Thanks Jim
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Does Not look like we are going to have a season!!! I held out long enough. Really I thought they would of settled by now. Hockey was the only sport that HAD sportsmen, no longer!! Hurt is beyond what I feel. More like ripped off!! We win the Cup, but can’t hang the banner!! Lame…
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Can’t do much about what is going on so this should cheer you up…..
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=Ztu6tvi0ExU
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Duncanz Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 3:22 am
@Licked Doggest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnJ7hmhjPQA
Doan talk to me and I doan believe a word / Doan try to make me feel alright / All the love in the world / Is not enough to save my soul tonight ….
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Lake Forest Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 9:18 am
@Duncanz, Wow, one of my all time favorites!
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Just can’t help, but think the sides hate each other too much for a deal to be made. Really that is the biggest item still unresolved for a new CBA to be done. This years of contract length, variance in salary of contract years, and length of the CBA is not enough to lose a season, or even a months salary. This is just anamosity like a bad divorce and maybe the courts are the only way 2 parties with irreconcilable differences can resolve their problems. But unlike a divorce these folks will still be in the same house afterward, Ackward!
http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/8754861/plenty-blame-go-lockout-mess
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luc20rules Reply:
December 17th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
@luc20rules, I can’t seem to stop thinking about that movie 8 men out. It was the movie about the Chicago Black Sox that threw the World Series, because they were not paid enough by a penny pinching owner. I guess its the integrity of the game thing. In all my days as a fan I always thought the only people that loved hockey more than me were the players, but I realize I must love the sport more. I’ve paid to play it. Not to say this is all the players fault, but do you think for a second I wouldn’t fully commit to play hockey for a living for half a million a year? Then there are the owners also allowing current and future revenue tank just to get a 1 year shorter on contract length, 5% year to year instead of 25% max to min variants, and 10 year instead of 8 year CBA length, and really the biggest problem is that they are totally inflexible on all three of the items. No Hockey may as well cancel Christmas. I guess I will just have to man up for family, which is more than I can say about the NHL & NHLPA. Its also clear they both blew off the words from President Obama urging both the NHL & NHLPA to do right by their fans. The fans are the ones they both live a privledged life on the backs of.
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Duncanz Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 2:02 am
@luc20rules, People are not taking into account that this NHLPA and current generation of players owe it to the future generations (the next 10 years’ worth, at the very least) not to cave in and be stuck with a bad deal. Accepting such a depletion, compared to what they presently have, would be to them as if they were paying to play as well when you think about it.
It’s all too easy to say that we would play for a relative pittance because we all would like that chance but it’s an incongruous notion. It’d be like how strikebreaking or pirate labor can permanently drag down wages and conditions in any industry, although let us not forget that the players are certainly not on strike here but have been locked out. So it’s not them holding the owners to ransom but the other way around. Fact.
The players have asked for the facilities to be opened and the season to proceed for all of us to enjoy while a bargain is negotiated but their offer has fallen on cloth ears.
The players want to play, the owners want to own.
The onus is all on the owners.
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luc20rules Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
@Duncanz, I do see what your saying about the future, but the contract length limit maybe the only thing the players should have a problem with. The 5% variance in salary from year to year is to prevent front loaded contracts which is just basically a Cap Cheat. The long length of the CBA basically I think both sides should want. Does either side want to have another year without revenue in less than 10 years? Even if they play 48 games do you think any of the teams outside of Montreal, Toronto, NYR, and maybe the Kings just because they are defending Champs will turn a profit? I don’t know if you have read my previous posts, but I have been way harder on the owners as the players have given more in negotiations. It is very hard for me to see why with so little left separating the 2 sides a deal can’t be done. I think there is a compromise to be made here and the onus is on both the NHL & NHLPA. What is separating the 2 sides doesn’t justify a lost month more or less the remainder of a possible season.
Before I forget thanks, Jim. Loved the series on Bob truely one of the greats in the industry. I will miss Courtney’s PA voice when there is Kings Hockey again. Please ask Bob to at least put off any thought of retiring for at least 1 more Kings Season, so us fans will not have to deal with losing 2 legendary voices of Kings Hockey at the same time.
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DesertKing Reply:
December 17th, 2012 at 8:52 pm
@luc20rules,
Seeing that picture of Bob lifting the Cup over his head tells me that Bob isn’t ready to retire yet.
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luc20rules Reply:
December 17th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
@DesertKing, I’m hoping he stays the length of the Kings Dynasty probably some 6 to 9 years of where the Kings win hopefully 3 or more championships.
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DesertKing Reply:
December 17th, 2012 at 10:01 pm
@luc20rules,
Amen!
The NHL & NHLPA both continue Deer in the headlights Eyed as juvenile game of chicken continues. The head on collision to be the courts.
http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/8757000/no-nhl-labor-talks-set-nhlpa-eager-negotiate
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Has anyone noticed how completely biased the comments section of TSN is? It’s unreal. I was reading an article on TSN by a legal expert about decertification, which was very informative BTW, and then I browsed the comments section and was shocked to see how one sided it was. I read through the latest 60 comments that were ALL pro owner before I came to the first pro player comment. Then I selected it to show the most liked comments and I have browsed thru the first 200 comments and there hasn’t been even one pro player comment. I’m used to seeing a fairly even amount of blame for both sides in the ESPN and Yahoo comment sections, so I thought that mabye it was just a Canadian thing since tsn is a predominately Canadian website.
Then I went to cbc’s website and saw a poll that they conducted and one of their questions was which side the fans supported. 55% of the fans said neither, 26% supported the players, and 17% supported the owners. I also browsed through the CBC comments section and found that the support was about the same each way. All things considered both the owners and players have a pretty even amount of support, give or take a little each way depending on the recent actions. But not in the TSN comments section. It’s got me thinking that the people in charge of the TSN comment section are manipulating the comments to favor the owners side. I’ve never seen any sports discussion be as one sided as the TSN comments section is.
Mabye it’s not TSN, mabye it’s the NHL paying people to go on the TSN website and post comments supporting the owners. Nah, that can’t be. That would mean that the NHL is using money to help them win the public relations battle against the Players Association, and that’s just crazy talk.
http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/blog/eye-on-hockey/20568961/nhl-lockout-the-league-hired-top-gop-strategist-to-run-pr-focus-group-change-perception
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Duncanz Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 2:50 am
@CBC14, Nicely researched and rather interesting figures there, weren’t they.
Kind of reminds you, leading up to the General Election, of the alternative reality you’d have labored under if you’d relied on say a Rasmussen poll over an Angus-Reid one.
On the surface your theories might seem to be fanciful, but when you consider that TSN is majority owned by Canada’s superpowerful Bell Media conglomerate there is every possibility of a little ‘Murdoching’ going on up there behind the maple leaf curtain!
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CB14 Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 5:16 pm
@Duncanz, Very interesting information…….
I wonder if any of the conversations at the TSN news desk went like this: TSN analyst Carl Rowe, “It’s wrong of you to call the poll for the Players, Northwestern Ohio’s votes haven’t been counted yet.”
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Sebastian Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 9:21 am
@CB14, TSN is a huge broadcast partner of the NHL, so we all know what side they are on. Every comment requires approval from TSN staff, so its obvious they are allowing the majority of pro owners comments and very few pro player comments. Just to test it out I made 2 different comments, one pro-player one pro-owner, only one was published…guess which one.
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Lake Forest Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 9:49 am
@Sebastian, I was about to say, until I read your last sentence that this is a conspiracy theory….
Now I don’t know what to think.
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CB14 Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
@Sebastian, Sounds about right.
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DesertKing Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 9:49 am
@CB14,
Media bias? Outside of politics? No, please say it isn’t so!
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CB14 Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 5:11 pm
@DesertKing, Hehe. I’m ok with a bias in media, after all everyone has their own opinions and is free to express them, but when they censor other people’s opinions in their comment sections, I think that’s crossing the line (to say the least). Express their pro owner opinion in columns and blogs on their website, but don’t distort the facts and censor people’s opinions just because you don’t agree with it.
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Am I the only one not concerned with raising the banner? To me, winning the Stanley Cup was the thing I dreamed of. Seeing Dustin Brown hoist it was incredible. The Kings performance in the playoffs was a dream come true. Raising the banner? Meh. All j have to do is think about game 6 and my hockey fantasy came to life! Eventually the games will continue. Next time I go to Staples Center, it will be hanging. The Kings are still the champs. Nothing can take that away. Nothing.
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puck73 Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 10:11 am
@Sancho, I think the problem is, there are not as many people posting here because of various bad things that have happened since October like…ohh, I dont know, The Lockout, Rich Hammond leaving under bad circumstances, and of course, the passing of David Courtney.
Hang in there Sancho, we will get to see the banner raised……one day.
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DesertKing Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 10:18 am
@puck73,
Hopefully during a game against the Casucks or the Guppys.
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luc20rules Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
@DesertKing, I think Cryotes would be best. Although I can see Mike Smith in the Rafters with a knife posing some problems.
Neil Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 11:08 am
@puck73, Once the lock out is settled…must will come back here..
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Duncanz Reply:
December 18th, 2012 at 11:29 am
… or will the numbers blogging and the numbers attending NHL games decline commensurately?
Thanks Jim for an outstanding look into the life of the Voice of the Kings.
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