Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What up is Muschin?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
You checking out The Cruise Show podcast? Make sure to
subscribe right this shit The Cruise Show Real ninety two three.
Jeff Garcia the sports Dude. I'm Jay Cruz and he's back.
Jim Lampley, the living legend himself. How are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I'm doing well. How are you guys?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
We're doing okay, We're doing all right. You're in San
Diego now, and then as soon as you're done here,
you're headed the Los Angeles and we're going to the
Wildcard gym.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
That is correct, and it's very, very exciting to be
going back into the wild Card for the first time
in years. I've been living in North Carolina for the
last six years, so I haven't seen Freddy but once
or twice. Haven't been in the wild Card. Freddy got
married since the last time I was there. I really
(00:41):
thrilled to be going back today.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, I've been there before. I had the opportunity to
be there once with where when Matt, you know, Manny
was having a fight and he was in their training
and you know, they had media there as you know,
and you know, the place just smells of like of
just of strength. It's that it's got that that that smell.
That that's it's it's very unique, right, and uh, it's
(01:03):
just blood, sweat and tears, I guess is the best
way to describe it.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It is boxing. You know, in case you have no
idea what the atmospherics of boxing are, go spend an
hour in the Wildcard. You'll feel it, you'll see it,
You'll learn from it. And obviously many Pacau was the
heart and soul of many unforgettable sparring sessions and unforgettable
(01:30):
training sessions. Uh. In the Wildcard, his relationship with Freddie
was so bonded, so thick, so good, h and a
huge part of Manny's success.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It happened the memoir Uniquely Lucky Life in sports television. Uh,
you know, I know we say it's luck, right, but
how much of it is luck?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well? There are a lot of things that I point to.
I have a lot of friends who pushed back and said,
why do you say lucky? You were good, you knew
what you were doing, who had fills? And I say, yeah,
but when you are the one person chosen from among
four hundred and thirty two candidates in a national talent
(02:12):
hunt to find the very first person, ostensibly college age,
who's going to stand on the sideline of a college
football game with a camera and a microphone. And you
are the one person among the four hundred and thirty
two who is not undergraduate age, who is in graduate school,
who is not eighteen to twenty two, who is twenty five,
who is not completely fresh with no experience in broadcasting.
(02:37):
I had done a great deal of stuff in Chapel
Hill at the University of North Carolina. All of those
things about me, my age, my educational credential, my background
as a broadcaster. That was supposed to disqualify me. The
way they build the whole search, they were supposed to
be looking for somebody completely different from me. And at
(02:58):
the last minute, before they chose the person who was
going to go on the sideline, the boss of the organization,
the famous runa Arledge had of ABC Sports, had a
last minute sort of cautionary thought, Wait a minute, we're
about to put somebody on who's never been in front
of a camera before, never held a microphone before. Did
we actually interview somebody who has done those things? Well, yeah,
(03:22):
there was one guy, and I was that guy. And
the evaluation form for my interview. My screening interview was
four words, and those words were arrogant, antagonistic, abrasive, might
as well have been an asshole. I don't I don't
(03:42):
really know. They were called the fora's and and so
I was definitely not supposed to get that gig, but
I did, and that was the beginning of my network
television career. I spent three years on the sideline. That
was another thing. It was supposed to be won, and
then they were going to go find somebody else. But
(04:03):
the best laid plans always go haywire somehow, and I
wound up not just continuing on the sideline of college football,
but doing an apprenticeship under which I went out to
all of the crazy wide worlds. All of the older
Hall of Fame type announcers on the ABC sports staff
at that time hated the idea of me at first,
(04:26):
and then eventually loved the idea of me because they
realized that I was a person who was going to,
at least for a period of time, have to go
back to the wrist wrestling and the log rolling and
the barrel jumping and the demolition derby and the motorcycles
on ice every year until I was finished paying my
dues and they wouldn't have to do those things anymore.
(04:47):
So it's all an unlikely path. And then there are
many other lucky breaks that take place, all leading up
to in nineteen eighty seven, the ultimate lucky break, when
a new incoming president of ABC Sports who had replaced
roent Knowledge, wanted to get rid of me and decided
that the best way to get rid of me would
(05:07):
be to assign me to boxing, and I became the
boxing commentator on the staff of ABC Sports. And the
other thing he didn't realize, besides that I knew a
lot about boxing and cared about it, was that they
had just signed a get Acquainted Looxie contract with a
nineteen year old heavyweight from upstate New York whose name
was Mike Tyson. So the first five or six television
(05:31):
network boxing events I called were Mike Tyson fights. During
that period of time, he was well on his way
to becoming not just the biggest public figure in boxing,
but the biggest public figure on the planet, and I was,
in effect the curator of his story. So all of those,
and there are many many more, but all of those
(05:52):
are the characteristics and the events by which I say lucky.
It was highly concidental, it was intuitive, It was great
for me, and I got a big career out of it.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Isn't it crazy how things or someone is sent out
to destroy you, or something is sent out to destroy
you ends up, you know, creating something special.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Be careful how you think you're going to destroy somebody.
I mean, he played right into my hands. And just
to continue that narrative, his name was Dennis Wwanson and
he had a huge credential coming into ABC Sports. He
had been the station manager of WLSTB in Chicago, where
(06:34):
he had given a daily talk show to a woman
named Oprah Winfrey. Pretty good credential, Okay, so he had
some juice and was supposed to be able to evaluate talent,
and he, you know, went to the wall to try
to embarrass me, destroy me, and get rid of me.
And know the instant that he chose as his vehicle
(06:56):
for that, to assign me to boxing. I just couldn't
believe my good fortune. The very first sports event that
my mother ever sat me down to watch on television
after my father died when I was five years old,
The first sports event she ever sat me down to
watch while saying to me, this is what your father
would be doing with you if he were still alive,
with Sugar Ray Robinson versus Bobolsen for the Middleway Championship.
(07:20):
So let Friday Night Fights in nineteen fifty five. I
watched the Friday Night Fights on Jellette. Listen to Don
Dunfied teach me about boxing all the way through the
nineteen fifties into the nineteen sixties, and then at the
nineteen sixty Rome Olympics, I saw my hero, and my
hero was Cassius Clay, And eventually I was at my
(07:43):
very first live prize fight, which was Cassius Clay versus
Sonny liston Miami Beach, February twenty five, nineteen sixty four.
And the rest of the story just flows on from there.
So Lucky is inescapable, and I'm not diminishing myself when
I say it. Just a fact unusual is written all
(08:04):
over this. It was very counterintuitive. It shouldn't have happened
exactly the way it did. Uh, but it did. And
and on I went until eventually HBO and the heart
of my identity now as a sports broadcaster, we got.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
To remind everybody on Saturday, two pm. Wildcard Jim Jim
will be there. Jim Lampley will be there signing his
book It Happened, a uniquely lucky life in sports television.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
You could.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
You're gonna be able to meet him, get it signed.
Freddie Roach will be in the building, I'm assuming as well, Jim.
Right Saturday at two.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, they'll be. Freddy will be there. We're both gonna
be signing books. I just thought of this while you
were saying it. Wildcard gym, in the Wildcard gym. My
whole life is a wild card, right, So it's going
to be very exciting to be there signing books for
boxing fans again, to be shoulder to shoulder again with
(09:04):
Freddie about whom I created and produced a six part
documentary series called On Freddie Roach that is HBO several
years ago. So a sort of micro examination of what
life with Parkinson's is really all about and how you
get through it hour by hour, day by day. His courage,
(09:27):
his perseverance, his amazing skill and devotion as a boxing trainer.
I always found him to be a remarkably attractive and
meaningful human being. And it'll be great to be back
side by side and shoulder to shoulder with Freddy. You know, Jim, we're.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Radio guys, right, so we're sound guys. And I read
that you narrated your book as well, which I think
is amazing because who better to tell the story and
you have such a powerful voice and a voice that
you know that you just can't forget.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
That was a no brainer, you know, I hadn't hadn't
really thought of it at first, but the publisher said,
are you going to read the book? And I thought, hm,
you know, is that too egotistical to self congratulatory? And
the publisher said, no, that that is absolutely natural and
(10:20):
that's what the readers and listeners are going to want.
So the audiobook is doing well, I'm pleased to say,
And I guess people aren't tired tired of my voice yet.
And it's it's two hundred and seventy two pages. Took
it took a while to read, but it was It
was fun because I liked the writing. I was, you know,
(10:42):
I was reading day after day and thinking to myself,
this guy's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
That that's a nice.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Turn phrase there. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I want to say congratulations on the broadcast over last weekend.
Sink of the mile fights over there in New York.
Congratulations on being back in it and calling fights. I
wish there were a few more better fights for you
to have called that weekend.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
I was a little as a pointed, I wish there
were a few better rounds. I wish there were anything
to sink my teeth into. It was, you know, from
a boxing interst entertainment standpoint, it was dreadful, but it
was thrilling to be there, and it was thrilling to
be back on the microphone calling fights.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
It sounded amazing, but we did get one good thing
coming out of it, and that's Canelo and Crawford confirmed
for later this year. Right, your initial thoughts on that
and Crawford coming up and all that.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Stuff, fantastic fight. My my thoughts for a long time were, well,
Terrence is just too small. That's that's too big a
weight gap, and particularly given Canelo's amazing punch resistance, the
way that he takes a punch. It was for a
long time I was thinking, I'm not sure I can
see Terrence hurting Canelo, and then I realized I was
(11:58):
selling Crawford short. The best way to watch Terrence Crawford
do something meaningful and spectacular to is tell him he
can't do it. He is one of those people who
is absolutely determined to prove that he can do what
you tell him he can't do. Going back to his
very first television appearance, which was on the undercart of
(12:20):
a top ranked pay per view in Las Vegas, where
he was thrown in more or less as a last
minute opponent against a rising prospect from South America named
Bratis Prescott, and the feeling was, who is Terrence Crawford.
Nobody really knows him, and Prescott is a thrilling talent.
(12:41):
This is going to be a perfunctory undercard fight. I
believe it was on a packout pay per view, and
it was Tim Bradley who had told the top ranked
people when he knew they were fishing around for an
opponent for Prescott. Bradley had sparred with Crawford, said put
Terrence Crawford in against him, I think you'll be surprised
(13:03):
at what you get. And Crawford won every round against
Bratis Prescott. And that was the very first time I
had seen him, so I bonded with him from that
moment forward. He is a deeply intense competitor he is.
I will prove it to you from the core out.
(13:23):
And he comes from a river city in the United States,
which is a long and storage tradition in American boxing.
Guys from Detroit, guys from Saint Louis, guys from Gary, Indiana,
all of those are river cities. Ezer Charles was a
river city fighter, And so you could go on and on.
(13:46):
But at the end of the day, I have managed
to wake up in the past few weeks and realize
this is not a mismatch. This is Terrence Crawford. And
this is Terrence Crawford coming up in wait with competent
training and adequate preparation, and he's as smart as any
fighter alive. And I just hope for Canelo's sake, I
(14:08):
mean Canelo's neighborhood right now, by the way, I'm probably
no more than a half mile from his house. I
just hope for Canelo's sake that he is taking Terrence
as seriously as he needs to take him. Because he
takes him lightly. I think he's going to be shocked.
Terrence Crawford is a spectacular competitor.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Hey, Jim, you know what I wanted to ask you
what's like, what's the best or the coolest memorabilia that
you have?
Speaker 1 (14:36):
The coolest memorabilia I have. I have a glove that's
autographed by Muhammad Ali, so yeah, you can't beat that.
I have even more than that. I have a photograph
of Ali with my eight year old daughter, Brooke's now
(15:00):
forty four, the day that they spent the whole day
together at the United States Boxing Writers' Association dinner in
New York in nineteen eighty eight, when Brook was an
eight year old girl spending the whole day at a
boxing awards event and Ali was there to sign books
(15:21):
all day. Tom Hauser had just published his definitive biography
of Muhammad Ali, and there was a moment when I
needed to go out and run some errands in Manhattan traffic,
and I knew that I would be taking a lot
longer to run those errands if Brook were going to
go with me. So I turned around in the media
room and looked around and said, I need somebody to
(15:44):
watch Brook while I go out and run these errands.
And Ali instantly stuck his arm up and said leave
her with me, And he wound up spending hours with
her magic tricks card tricks, just talking and all day
and that night he looked out into the audience at
the dinner and saw her getting a little tired, flagging,
(16:06):
and he motioned her and brought her up onto the
dais and sat her down between him and me. And
I have a photo of the two of them together
and me with them, and it's unforgettable. And that's my
single most treasured Beasts of Boxing memorabilia by far. By
(16:27):
the way, she's forty four years old now, she's arguably
the number one most important art dealer in the entire world.
From that day onward, she has always known that she
was special. And I'll never forget riding home to drop
her at her mother's apartment that night, when she turned
me in the car and said, Dad, who was that guy?
(16:49):
And well, they're going to grow up and read about him.
You're going to grow up and know all about that.
You know, there's a lot to tell, and I couldn't
possibly tell you all of it right here and now,
but I'll just give you this to take to bed tonight.
He's the most famous man in the world, and no
one can deny that he's the most famous man in
(17:09):
the world. It's not even an argument. She said, you mean,
I just spent most of the day with the most
famous man in the world. I said, yes, you did,
and even more to the point, he spent most of
the day with you. Wow, the story, whoa, it's in
the book. By the I just gave something away, of course,
But you know the book is filled with things of
(17:32):
that nature. That but you ask what's the best that's
number one?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, is there a story that was the toughest to tell?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No, it wasn't a story that was the toughest to tell.
It was poignant for me because the book is dedicated
to my double widow mother, maybe the most courageous person
I've ever known, and my one hundred two year old
paternal grandmother. She died at a hunt and two, but
(18:03):
you know I knew her for forty five years before that.
But at any rate, the book was dedicated to them
because they were both NonStop, inveterate storytellers. My storytelling style
comes from them, and I can hear them in my
head even today. I heard them the whole time I
(18:24):
was writing the book. And so there's a poignancy in that.
My mother raised me selling insurance in Florida, my father
died when I was five years old. I would go
spend the summers with my grandmother, so all year long,
I would listen to my mother in the kitchen in
(18:45):
Florida telling me her stories. Then I would go to
North Carolina and listen to my grandmother telling me her stories.
And both of them shaped me. Had tremendous influence on me.
And the storytelling that you read and experience in the
book is directly influenced by those two women. That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
We got to remind everybody again. Two o'clock Wildcard, Jim Saturday,
Jim will be there. You could buy the book there
by the way and have him sign it right there.
I guess if you have a copy of your own
you can bring it down, but make sure that you
get down there. That's all they're going to be signed.
That's all he's going to be signing, So is the book.
So make sure you have a book. If not, buy
one there. Two o'clock Wildcard, Jim. I want to ask
(19:26):
you one last question, because I know you got to
go of all the people that could have written your forward.
I mean, there's you could have Jim had your choice.
Why Taylor Sheridan.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I love him. I think he's amazingly talented. I love
all his shows.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I was just like, Wow, that was a unique pick.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I met him at a boxing match in Las Vegas.
I met him in a restaurant after Canelo Albres versus
Jamel Charlow. And when I went to that dinner, which
was organized by film director Antuine Fuqua that directed me
(20:07):
in southbaw Me and Jake Gillenhall and I went into
the restaurant and there was a chair reserved at the
end of a long table, about sixteen or eighteen people there,
and the chair was right next to this person I
didn't recognize, and that was Taylor's share. So I sat
down and he proceeded to interview me for two and
(20:27):
a half hours. It was a NonStop conversation and it
was all boxing. Tell me about this fight, Tell me
about this fight, tell me about this fight. He has
encyclopedic knowledge of boxing. And it was a stunning conversation.
And I went back to North Carolina. He went back
to Fort Worth and he started calling me late at night.
(20:49):
I reached a point where every time the phone would
ring past eleven o'clock at night, my wife would say,
that's your boyfriend, and it was my boyfriend, and we
were talking boxing NonStop. So then the second time I
saw him face to face again after a fight in
Las Vegas, walked into a restaurant, same general group, the
(21:11):
Hollywood group, although Taylor doesn't go to Hollywood. He's not Hollywood.
He is fort Worth and I walked in saw him
and he said, so, what you been doing. I said, well,
I'm writing my autobiography. He said, well, I hope I'm
writing the forward. I said, Taylor, I was going to
ask you for a blurb. I know how busy you are.
(21:32):
He said, no, I don't want to write a blurb.
I want to write the forward. And I went back
to Chapel Hill and told my as told to author,
Taylor Sheridan's going to write the forward. Oh, how could
you fall for that kind of Hollywood bs. He's the
busiest writer in the world. Everybody knows. He's writing three
different series right now. He's not going to have time
to write the forward for the book. I said, I
(21:54):
don't know what you want me to do. He told
me he was going to write the forward. I'm certainly
not going to call him and tell him that he's not,
et cetera. So the forward showed up on the day
of the deadline, perfectly written forward by Taylor Sheridan. What
a gift. That's That's one amazing gift. I did a
bookstore appearance in Chapel Hill last week with my neighbor
John Grisham, who is the number one fiction selling author
(22:17):
in the United States. We sold a hundred books at
that bookstore appearance. Why because Grisham was sitting with me
and saying, you know, you've got to read this book,
and he's another one. When I told a friend of
mine I was going to ask Grisham to write a blurb,
he said, oh no, no, don't even bother. You're just
going to embarrass yourself. Grisham doesn't write blurbs for other
(22:37):
people's books. So then a week after that, I was
out of lunch with him and I said, well, I
was going to ask you for a blurb, but somebody
who knows a lot, seems to know everything, told me
that you don't write blurbs. Who the hell said that?
Where did you get that? I write blurbs all the time.
I'm eager to write a blurb for your book. So
I got that. And then the other thing that happened,
which is ironic beyond ironic, is that George Foreman died
(23:00):
two weeks before the publication date. The title comes from
my call of Foreman's win over Michael Moorer. The blurb
he wrote for the back cover was one of his
last public acts. There are the prologue. The first thing
you read in the book is the nineteen year old
me watching the nineteen year old hymn win his Olympic
(23:22):
gold medal in Mexico City. There are all sorts of
different ways in which George connects directly to the book.
So for him to die, I mean, I couldn't stop
crying for two days because of the shock and the
unbelievable resonance of it that he would die at that moment,
(23:44):
just as my book was about to come out, and
it's so much about him.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Wow, amazing.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Jim.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
We thank you for your time. We understand, busy schedule,
a lot going on. Always a pleasure having you on.
We appreciate it. Thank you, Love you guys. Great to
be with you, talk to you late.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Thank you, Jim.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I have a great signing. Take care, Bye bye, Pace
Jacking Richard The Cruse Show. Thanks for listening to The
Cruise Show podcast to make sure to subscribe, and hey,
auto download so you don't miss an episode. So so