ABC's Wide World of Sports

I used to watch this sports show with great keenness. It is hosted by the one of the pioneers of sportscasting, Jim McKay. Although McKay is often recognized as Olympics commentator, this is perhaps his finest work for ABC Sports.

I remember McKay's words, "Travelling the world to bring you a variety of sports, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat - this is ABC's Wide World Sports". It gives you fascinated peek into all kinds of athletes and sports events and it was well done.

If you're old enough, you probably do. If not, where do you think all that tight security came from? Before 9/11/01, there was Munich. The 1972 Munich Olympics were supposed to be the showcase of postwar Germany. After the hate-filled, politicized 1936 Olympics, Munich was going to be the best Olympics that were to be. However, that wasn't to be, Why? Because the Munich Olympics were marred by what became known as the "Munich Massacre," when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped Israeli athletes, and later killed them in a botched commando rescue attempt. One man covered that event for sixteen straight hours. That was Jim McKay of ABC Sports, and the host of ABC's Wide World of Sports. Jim McKay, the man who covered the most unusual sports ever.

... to appreciate "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat".

I was half-decent at a couple of track and field events back in schooldays, but I was never ever one of the serious sports fanatics. Even so, I always liked this show. With its magazine format, you never knew quite what you were going to get, but it was usually something exciting.

I hadn't thought of that name "Jim McKay" in years, but as soon as I saw it here I was immediately thinking Mexican cliff diving! Not to mention luge, and speedboat racing. You could always count on a bit of travelogue to go along with your sports, making this the best show outside of the Olympics, especially before the Olympics got really, really, really commercialized. (I don't watch the Olympics myself anymore.)

Isn't this show where I first heard Aaron Copland's thrilling "Fanfare for the Common Man"? Yep, "Wide World of Sports" was a class act all around.

I think the mystique of this show can be summed up in two words -- Cold War. There was something about watching a seemingly invincible automaton East German luger, Romanian gymnast or Bulgarian weightlifter in a cold grey socialist setting surrounded by Politburo officials and apparatchniks. It was through sports, moreso than any other medium, that we saw the first signs of chinks and cracks in the armor of communism. Growing up in Texas, there were some sports that you just had no exposure to other than seeing it on the Olympics or WWoS. Now that the Olympics are a polished, packaged, commercialized carnival that would rather show a figure skater warming up than an actual event, I long for WWoS even more. As long as they don't let its production fall into the hands of some Gen-X'er who thinks that graphics and loud music and foul-mouthed snowboarders are the only things the populace are interested in, WWoS could open up to the MTV generation a world that would otherwise go unseen. What person born between 1952 and 1966 couldn't hum the opening song or recreate the angles of Vinko Bogatej's body as he tumbled off the ski jump? What person born after this would even know what ski jumping is -- considering that they only see it on the Olympics, where, in the hands of an American TV network, they only see a ten-minute segment showing the medalists and a mention of the Americans who finished 35th and 47th, respectively? "Enough of that," says Bob Costas, "let's go to the arena and watch Sasha Cohen warm up!"

PROVING WHAT WAS undoubtedly the greatest of Sports Anthologies in the History of pre-cable television, ABC's WIDE WORLD of SPORTS set the standards and bar high. There is nothing in their chosen title that could be construed as being classified as puffing or braggadocios. They delivered exactly what they said they would.

DURING ITS "GOLDEN AGE", we saw just about everything that one could imagine in the realm of sports and athletics, even "Athletic Sports". Championship Boxing, Track & Field*, Amateur Wrestling (real contests with no beer being sold in the venue), Swimming & Diving, S.C.U.B.A., Bowling, Billiards (or was it Pool?), Fishing, Hunting and our personal favourites, Olympic Style Weightlifting & Competitive Bodybuilding Physique) all had at least a brief mention in the series.

THE POPULARITY OF this weekly 90 minute sports catch-all made household words out of the likes of Howard Cossell and Jim McKay. It also forever burned into our cultural conscientious the phrase about, "......the Agony of Defeat!"

IN ITS ALL-Encompassing and near total domination of the sports World on television, WIDE WORLD served as a sort of "King Maker" of sports commentators. Although not limited to the following, among those who made early career appearances on the series were: Cossell, McKay, Al Michaels, Bill Fleming, Keith Jackson,Bud Palmer, Al Michaels and Chris Schenkel.

ALL OF THIS MUST seem very inconsequential to today's viewers' born too late to savor and appreciate WIDE WORLD. But in the days before seemingly endless channels and 24-7 coverage, it was at once both a ground breaking pioneer and a classic trend sender.