Anne Montgomery: Breaking Barriers in Journalism and Unveiling Forgotten Heroes

Episode Transcript
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Papamutes (00:10):
Welcome to Papamutes everybody.
Today, my guest is AnneMontgomery.
Anne has worked as a televisionsportscaster, newspaper and
magazine writer, teacher andauthor.
Her latest novel, yourForgotten Sons, is available now
wherever you buy your books.
Novel your Forgotten Sons isavailable now wherever you buy
your books.
Anne's TV work has taken her totelevision stations in Columbus
, georgia, rochester, new York,phoenix, arizona and ESPN in

(00:31):
Bristol, Connecticut, where sheanchored the Emmy award-winning
SportsCenter.
Anne finished her on-camerabroadcasting career with a
two-year stint as the studiohost for the NBA's Phoenix Suns.
Thrilled to have her on, andwelcome to Papamutes.

Anne Montgomery (00:46):
Well, thank you for inviting me.
I'm glad to be here.

Papamutes (00:49):
I mentioned in the opening.
Excuse me, while I get rid ofthis stuff off camera.
So I mentioned you know yourbackground in broadcasting etc.
But before we get to that, Iwant to jump to your Forgotten
Sons book, which I've read.
Some of that's online, you knowyou can only read so much.
How did that come about?

(01:11):
I know what it's about, butjust for the listeners how did
your Forgotten Sons come about?
Because it's very fascinating.

Your Forgotten Sons is quite a departure from
the novels I normally write.
I write about Arizona and Iwrite about.
I'm a news junkie.
I still read the newspaperevery day and watch the news,
even though it makes me crazy.
And so I get stories fromthings I read and I become
interested in them.
So I write novels around reallife and real life situations.

(01:41):
But in this case this wastotally different.
I had a dear friend who workedat the first TV station I worked
at in Columbus, georgia, andRegina called me one day and she
said I have to have a surgeryon my spine.
She said there's a chance Imight be paralyzed from the
waist down and I need you tocome to Baltimore, to Johns
Hopkins Hospital, to be myhealthcare power of attorney.

(02:02):
And I said, of course, you knowshe was my best friend.
And so I flew there.
And the night before thesurgery she hands me the Ziploc
bag full of 75 year old lettersand she said whatever happens to
me, promise me that you'll tellBud's story.
And of course I was like Iwanted her to feel better.
I'm like, yes, of course I'llwrite a book about Bud.

(02:22):
And then, course, she had thesurgery.
She had a tumor around herspinal cord.
They removed it.
She walked out of the hospitaland I had made this promise that
I would write about this manwho served in the Graves
Registration Service in WorldWar II.
Now most people don't know whatthat means, but the Graves
Registration Service, those arethe guys who had to locate,
identify and bury the dead.
Now when you read books and yousee movies, we see battles and

(02:47):
guys shooting each other andplanes falling from the skies,
but we don't see what happensnext, because at some point
someone has to pick up thepieces.
And the graves registration menwere those people.
And if you think about D-Dayand Bud Richardville was at
Normandy 10,000 people died,both allies and Germans, that

(03:07):
day.
Well, they couldn't leave thosebodies there.
The allies funneled 186,000servicemen through that area.
You had to pick the pieces upbecause, quite honestly, it's a
health hazard, but it's also amorale problem.
You can't have these young mencoming off going.
Oh my God, their body'severywhere.

(03:28):
So his job was to locate,identify and bury the dead and
it was something most of thesemen never spoke about.
They were embarrassed.
Most of them said we want to goand, you know, be real soldiers
.
And it was horrible.
Now people go to Normandy todayand there's a magnificently
beautiful, graceful cemeterythere, as there are in 26
nations worldwide where Americanservicemen and women are buried

(03:52):
, and Bud and his men built that.
They built those cemeteries,those beautiful, graceful,
honorable places that theseservice people are buried today.
So I wrote a book about who hewas and how did I learn that the
letters he sent home and thetitle, by the way, is your

(04:14):
Forgotten Sons His last letterhome to his mother was signed
your Forgotten Son.

Papamutes (04:20):
Wow.

And Regina and I decided that all those people
have been forgotten.
You don't see them in movies orbooks, nobody wants to talk
about them, so we dedicated itto all of them.

Papamutes (04:32):
What now?
What's his name?

Sergeant Bud Richardville.
He was a poor kid who grew upin Vincennes, Indiana,
depression era.
Not much of an education, but agood guy by all accounts,
someone everybody liked.
He was a bit of a rake.
The women liked him and there'salso a couple of love stories
in this.
I don't know.

(04:55):
He married a woman he barelyknew to like two weeks before he
shipped out, and that was acommon problem.
Young soldiers did that.
We're not sure why, maybethey're worried they're going to
die or whatever but Bud was 28.
So he was older because heworked in the paper mills in
Michigan and the paper millswere required.

(05:15):
I mean, they were one of thoseindustries that was required by
the military.
So he was deferred till he wasolder and then at 28, he was
drafted and he was immediatelymade a sergeant.
I think because all the guys hewas older and then at 28, he
was drafted and he wasimmediately made a sergeant.
I think because all the guys hewas serving with were very
young.
I mean guys 10 years youngerwere like a different generation
.
So he became a sergeant rightaway and the story follows his

(05:38):
marriage, which was hugely crazy.
And then also there were quietfamily rumors that there was
another woman in Europe at thetime, during the war.
So I took now understand thisis inspired by a true story,
which is very different than isbased on a true story.
Based means we know exactlywhat happened, we know what

(05:59):
people said.
It was documented, we know whohis friends were.
We know everything, the truthof all it.
This is not that this isinspired.
It's inspired by his letters,which means I took literary
license, I created friends forhim.
I created maybe who a womanmight've been that he met in
Europe.
His wife we know some about,but I don't want to share too

(06:20):
much about that because it's avery weird story.
Share too much about thatbecause it's a very weird story.
So it is Bud's story and it wasvery difficult to write because
it is necessarily gruesome, asyou can imagine in some parts.
The graves registration guysfollowed all the big battles.
He was at the Battle of theBulge, which the deadliest
battle in the history of the war, I think, and they also

(06:42):
liberated the death camps.
So those were the guys that hadto go in and straighten that up
.
So it was an impossible job andthey never got any credit for
it and I'm very delighted thatthis past summer in Vincennes,
indiana, we held a memorialservice for Bud.
He remains in Europe.
He's buried in Epinol, france,buried by his same guys that he

(07:06):
worked with.
And we had a service for himand they had a proclamation that
it was Bud Richardville Day andVincennes and they honored his
service.
And that had never happenedbefore and it wasn't just
gathering Allied dead, it wasGerman dead.
I'll give, I'll give you anexample, and you know I don't
want to scare people away, butthere are some gruesome parts

(07:28):
here.
Bottom line is they there wasthis city called Brest, france,
and the, the Allied that was asubmarine base there and and the
, the Germans took the town overto put their submarines there
so they could control the NorthSea and the channel.
And the Americans came in andsaid look, we're going to bomb

(07:48):
this, we're going to bomb this.
Please, everybody leave.
Okay.
And the French didn't leave.
Instead, they had cavernsunderneath the town and they set
up a hospital and they set upbeds, and so when the bombing
began, they all went underground.
Problem was, there was a fireand the Germans even went down

(08:10):
there to escape and we basicallybombed it to dust.
And so weeks and weeks latersome of our graves registration
men were sent there to go cleanout the tunnels Six weeks, two
months after the burning, andthere were bodies like three
deep.
There were babies in mother'sarms and the French people said

(08:32):
we want you to go in and takeout the Germans, and then we're
going to seal it up as a massgrave.
And our guys had to go downthere and figure out who in the
dark, who, to figure out who wasGerman, and bury them in a mass
grave.
And you're probably going to sayhow do I know this?
Because Bud did not write aboutthese things.
Most soldiers did not writeabout what they were doing
because they were censors andbesides that, none of these guys

(08:54):
wanted to admit what they weredoing.
They were embarrassed by it.
But I found one book calledCrosses in the Winds that was
written by a Lieutenant Colonel,joseph Shoman, who was a
captain in the GravesRegistration Service for 18
months during World War II andhe wrote about the things they
actually did.
And I got a copy of that bookand I read it and I used

(09:15):
Shoman's memories and put Bud inthose places.
Could Bud have been at Brest,france?
Could he have been at Dachau.
Could he?
You know, yes, he could havebeen in any of those places,
because these guys were shared.
You know they said okay, wejust had this huge battle, send
100 guys to you know whatevertown, and that was their job.

(09:37):
We send them home.
We send them home right away,you know, in 48 hours or however
quickly.
Back then you just couldn't doit in a world war.
You just there was no way tosend guys home, and so they were
buried and often exhumedseveral times and reburied when,
after Normandy, they had tobuild a grave site right up by

(10:00):
the beaches and then they had togo back a long time later,
exhume the bodies and put themin the, in the grave in the in
the um, where they're buriedtoday at Normandy.

Papamutes (10:11):
So yeah, it was a difficult book.

I can't tell you it was easy, um, but it it's
.
It's Bud's story too.
It's.
It's about him as a human being.
So I don't want people to betoo scared away because it's
gruesome.
But I felt if I didn't tell thehonest truth, I couldn't candy
coat it.
You know it would.
It would not be paying homageto those men.
But I have yet to find a personthat most people go.

(10:35):
Well, I never thought aboutwhere the bodies went, because
we don't, we don't want to, andand that's what's so sad and
these men didn't have a choice,they didn't get to, they didn't.
Nobody volunteered for this.
Um, and and there, bud livedright next to a railroad track
and said this past summer I gotto go to his home that's still

(10:55):
standing and, uh, it's likeeight feet from a railroad track
and as a young boy he was oftenasked to come and get.
In those days people would leapon the moving trains as they
moved through town because, youknow, people didn't have cars or
whatever, and that's how theytraveled.
And people are always fallingoff and getting killed.
And bud, as a teenager, wouldbe asked to go and pick up the

(11:16):
bodies off the train track.
And I think what happened iswhen he went to boot camp.
You know they'll say, well,what do you do?
And a guy, I'm a cook, and sothey make you a cook and he
might've been asked how he feltabout bodies and he might've
said, oh, it's okay, I've seen awhole bunch of them because I
picked them up as a kid off therailroad track.
He also worked the time, youknow, out in the rivers on the

(11:45):
logs and he might have justcasually said it was not a big
deal to him and that's how hegot there.

Papamutes (11:52):
Now I'm assuming that there's still this organization
within the military.
I mean, someone still has to dothat, right.

Yeah, it's called.
Today it's called mortuaryservices, I think it changed
leading into Vietnam.
But again, it's entirelydifferent today because the
bodies get sent home quickly,but someone's got to go out
there, exactly when you thinkabout Vietnam and a lot of these
guys, after victory in Europethey got shipped out to the

(12:21):
Philippines and it's bad enoughdealing with bodies when it's
cold, like the Battle of theBulge, when it's freezing, but
now go to the jungles and try tofind people and, yeah, a
horrendously horrible job andthey still have it.
Mortuary services.
Somebody's got to pick up thedead.
How else will people know thattheir loved one is dead if we

(12:44):
don't recover the bodies?
This is not new.
This is since the beginning ofwar, you know, and in our
revolutionary war and our civilwar, people were doing this, but
no one ever talked about it.

Papamutes (12:56):
So moving on to a more pleasant beginning, no it's
fine.
As I mentioned, you worked ondifferent areas in sports
television broadcasting.
How'd you get into televisionbroadcasting?

70 in March.
So the bottom line is this wasbefore women did this sort of
thing.
I didn't realize it was astrange job.
I mean, when I was in highschool I was in something called
the broadcast crew in NewJersey and we had a class where

(13:35):
we did a half hour show everymorning during homeroom.
We played music, we did news,we did announcements, and I was
an ice skater growing up and Iknew everybody in the hockey
team because I did stats forthem.
And one of the hockey playerscame up and said would you do
this announcement this morning?
And I said sure.
And I went to class and Idecided because we usually

(13:55):
lumped all the stories together,I pulled all the sports stories
out of the basket and the guyswent crazy.
They said you can't read sports, you're a girl.
The guys went crazy.
They said you can't read sports, you're a girl.
And and five minutes before theshow's supposed to start, the
teacher comes in and he goeswhat's the matter?
He said Annie wants to readsports.
He said if Annie wants to readsports, read the sports, go
ahead, leave her alone, just godo it.

(14:15):
And I read the sports thatmorning and I thought that was
pretty cool and just to piss theguys off.
I went in the next day and Ipicked up all the sports stories
again and they were offendedand so when I went on, they gave
me theme music which wasMission Impossible, and then
they started calling me Big Ann.
Here's Big Ann with the sports,and they thought that that

(14:37):
would offend me, but I loved it.
So I spent my senior year being.
Even in my high school yearbookit says this is your local
sportscaster under my picture.
And so my mother marched up tome and said so you got to go to
college.
We got to pick a school.
What do you want to be?
And I said I want to be asportscaster.
She said don't be ridiculous,I'm trying to have a serious

(14:59):
conversation with you.
I said well, mom, that's what Iwant to be and she's.
Everybody told me no, I couldnever be that thing.
Went to college, went to Miamiof Ohio.
They said you will never be asportscaster, you're a woman.
And yet my senior year theythey allowed me to co-host a
sports TV show with a guy and Iwent great, I'm finally going to

(15:21):
get a shot.
Well, the football coach, thebasketball coach and the
baseball coach all refused tospeak to me.
They would not be interviewedby me.
They refused, and so I went.
Well, what am I supposed to donow?
And people think don'tunderstand this.
They look at me like, well,there are women in sports, not
then, there weren't any.
They look at me like, well,there are women in sports, not
then there weren't any.

Papamutes (15:42):
This was 1976, 77,.
I guess I remember I mean 70s.
I actually grew up inPittsburgh.
There were some women on TV yes, I can see her face now and it
was Phyllis George.

Yes, exactly, phyllis George was Miss America.
Yes exactly, and it wasn't herfault, and they would put her in
a fur coat and she'd stand onthe sidelines and interview the
coach's wife Exactly right.
So it wasn't because she knewabout sports, it was because she
was a stunningly beautifulwoman standing on the sidelines.
They were not being real openminded here.
So when I was in college what Irealized was there are other

(16:17):
teams in a college.
We had archery and swimming andgymnastics and hockey and all
these other teams that no onepaid a bit of attention to.
So I went to all those teamsand they were thrilled.
They didn't care that I was awoman, they were delighted to
get coverage.
So when I graduated I couldn'tget a job anywhere.
I went to Washington DC andworked in a bar in Georgetown
with great fun it was the 80safter all and I just kind of two

(16:43):
years went by and I couldn'tget a job.
So I realized that I didn'tknow enough.
So I decided to become acertified amateur official in
the five main team spectatorsports football, baseball, ice
hockey, soccer and basketball.
I decided I would do that forfive years and that I would know
the games by then and that someforward thinking news director
would give me a job, and that'sexactly what happened, and I was

(17:04):
very fortunate that my first TVpartner was a wonderful guy who
who wasn't offended by the factmaybe he was offended by the
fact that I got the sportsdirector job above him but he
taught me what, what I needed todo.
I made a lot of horriblemistakes and I've learned that
it's really good to be athousand miles away from anyone
you know when you're ontelevision, because it's better

(17:30):
if everybody's a stranger.
So but that I'd since then Iyou know.
Then I worked at four other TVstations, um, until I was
pushing 40, when I was no longerpretty enough to be on camera,
because that's what happens towomen.

Papamutes (17:38):
Well, how did the ESPN gig come about?
Cause that's a pretty big deal,right, I mean.

Well, it was I.
I, you know.
I worked in Columbus, Georgia.
I worked in Rochester, New York.
Then I went to Phoenix.
I was in Phoenix two years andhad a great news director, by
the way, because I came and they, the Arizona Cardinals, moved
here right when I got here andhe made me their beat reporter,
which was amazing.
That meant I traveled with theteam, I covered them every day

(18:06):
and then we were talking 1988.
Actually they came here.
I guess, yeah, their firstseason would have been 88.
So I was very fortunate and Igot to cover all kinds of sports
here, which was great.
And I got a call from my agentone day and he said one of the
guys at ESPN saw you on the airand they want to hire you.
It was that simple.

Papamutes (18:25):
Wow, and that was what 1988, you say.

I went there in 90.
So they actually hired me endof 89.
And I was there two years.
Basically, it was no fun at all, none, no, they really they
hired women because they feltthey had to.
You know, it was that you haveto give women a chance, you have
to have diversity, and theydon't want to do that.
I mean no, and it really I mean.

(18:50):
I'll give you some examples.
Wow, are you a baseball fan?

Papamutes (18:54):
Yeah, I mean, I love all sports.

Okay, so I was an umpire for 25 years, right,
and I worked all levels of.
I was an amateur official, butyou know my favorite game was I
worked the San Francisco Giantsand the Phoenix Firebirds.
You know I have my lineup cardwith Dusty Baker and Barry Bonds
and you know.
So I mean I'm a good umpire andI'm on the air one night live

(19:19):
in SportsCenter.
If you're lucky, you get to seeall your highlights before you
go on.
But sometimes that doesn'thappen with a late show.
They just some productionassistant, which are just kids
right out of college desperateto be in TV, and they run in and
throw highlights in front ofyou, you know, while you're live
on the air.
And so that happened to me onenight and I go right to.
I go, okay, let's go to WrigleyField.

(19:40):
You know I didn't have a chanceto look ahead and the first
shot says oh, a guy got hit by afoul tip in the front row at
Wrigley Field and the guys youknow got hit with the ball.
Well, I know this is a mistakeand but I don't have time to
correct it because I have tomove on to the next highlight.
So at the end of every sportscenter there's something called
a postmortem, and the postmortemis where everybody in the show

(20:03):
sits around a big conferencetable.
We discuss what went well, whatwent poorly and what can we do
better.

Papamutes (20:08):
That's where Bud shows up, yeah.

So I raised my hand.
I said well, rich, I calledover the production assistant.
I said we need to talk aboutthat first play.
And he goes.
What do you mean, though?
A guy that got hit by the foultip?
I said, rich, he wasn't hitwith a foul tip.
That's impossible.
A foul tip is a ball that goesfrom the bat to the catcher's
glove, is caught.
It's a strike, but it's a liveball.
That means if some guy'sstealing home, the umpire has to

(20:35):
stop and wait, and to stop andwait, and he's, he's, you can
make a play on him.
A foul ball is a dead ball.
It goes out of play.
So the guy that got hit in thefront row got hit with a foul
ball.
There's silence, not one guysaid anything, and finally, um,
the producer goes.
Is it that big a deal?
I said, well, yeah, it is thatbig a deal.
And rich gets up and he goesyou're nothing but a picky bitch

(20:56):
.
I said no.
I said I.
I said I'm an umpire.
I said and some people eitherknow I'm an umpire and that's a
big mistake.
Okay, because it's a live ball.
Foul tip, foul ball, twodifferent things, and he stomped
out.
Not one guy defended me, andthe next day I got called into
my boss's office and I wasordered to apologize to Rich

(21:17):
because I hurt his feelings andI was ordered to apologize to
Rich because I hurt his feelings.
Sounds like today.
Well, I was like, but I'm right.
I mean, I'm an umpire.
I understand this, and wouldn'tyou think ESPN would want it to
be right?
You would think yeah, and thenthis was before the internet.
I know people don't believethere was a time before then,

(21:37):
but there was.
So we didn't have access toevery bit of information
constantly.
But there was a guy at ESPNnamed Howie and for months I
didn't know who this guy was.
He just wandered around thenewsroom all the time.
And then I found out he was theinformation guy.
You could ask him any questionabout any sport in the history
of the planet and he couldanswer it.

(21:58):
And if he couldn't answer it ina second, he could go find it.
So I never dealt with Howie.
And then one day I was on timecrunch and I had to find a piece
of information.
I don't remember what theinformation was at this point
and I said Howie, because hewalked right by my desk and he
said here's the information.
And so I went on the air.
The next day my boss calls meand he goes why did you say that

(22:19):
?
Live on the air?
I went, what are you talkingabout?
And he gave me the piece ofinformation.
I said oh, and I paused becauseI didn't want to throw Howie
under the bus, thinking that hemade an error of some kind.
And then I see him standing inthe doorway and he's smiling at
me and I said Howie gave me thatinformation before I went on
the air and Howie said I nevertold her anything wow so now I

(22:43):
can't use this.
The guy with all the information.

Papamutes (22:46):
It was that kind of stuff so at that time, I mean I
grew up, you know I'm inPittsburgh, I'm watching sports,
I'm, you know I love sports.
I've seen SportsCenter, I I'veseen you, but I mean, who was
their recognizable name, so tospeak?
That was good.
You know what I mean.
Like, I'm trying to think ofthe name.

Mike Tirico was my first long-term partner.
We worked six months, eightmonths together.

Papamutes (23:14):
He's a good guy.

Dan Patrick, great guy.
Oh, who's my buddy?
Who does college football?
I shared it.
Fowler, chris Fowler, very niceman.
Please don't get the impressionthat everybody was mean, they
weren't.
But you know we're all in a.
It's hard to like say anybodywas buddies with anyone.
We're all in a hurry.
You know doing the news everynight is manic craziness.
I can imagine but but yeah, no,I don't want to give the

(23:38):
impression that there weren'tsome good people.

Papamutes (23:40):
There were yeah, great, great.
Now, um, who do you admire inthe broadcasting universe,
whether it's now or back then?
I mean, I know you named somejust now, but who do you?
Who do you look at and say now,that's the way to do it, man or
or female?

That's hard.
That's hard for me because,I'll be truly honest with you,
the last five, six years I don'tpay as much attention as I used
to.
I watch football, I watch NFL,I'll watch a little college ball
, but much of the time I haveanother home.
I live in the Virgin Islands.
I know poor me.
I know I live in St Croix anddown there we get cricket and um

(24:22):
.
I don't have the same access Iused to.
I don't have a newspaper thatthat gives me a lot of
information.
I don't read sports illustratedanymore because you can only
read it online now.
So I I've sort of fallen out ofpaying much attention.

Papamutes (24:38):
How about when you were broadcasting?

I really didn't , I really didn't, honestly, I
didn't watch that much.
It sounds absurd.

Papamutes (24:47):
You're busy doing your thing, right.

Yeah, I was working in the bar, I officiated
, I mean, sometimes, two sportsa season.
I might be doing hockey andbaseball at the same time, you
know the seasons overlapped orfootball.
I mean it was crazy, and Iworked nights in a restaurant.
So I'll be honest.
And then once I was in TV, Ididn't have time to watch
anybody else in TV.
So I don't, I just rememberpeople who were nice, people who

(25:11):
were nice to me, you know, whodidn't see me as a threat,
because in a lot of the places Iwent, there were always some
people who were offended by mybeing there, because, you know,
today they're women directproducers, there's women, camera
people, there's women and noone even blinks an eye.
But I was always the only one,and so sometimes it was awkward,
you know, especially lockerrooms and that kind of thing

(25:32):
which, no, nobody should go intolocker rooms except athletes.
I really think we shouldn't.
I think they should be leftalone, but I think they should
also have to come and talk to usbecause too many times they
sneak out.
So bottom line is, I honestlycan't think of anybody.
I just know some people werenice Chris Berman's a great guy,
you know, some were nice andsome were not.

Papamutes (25:55):
You know, as far as interviewing athletes, which
sport do you think are the mostcordial athletes?

Not that the other ones are evil, but in
general I don't think it's asport by sport thing, I think
it's a human thing.
I've been in situations whereathletes have saved my butt and
they didn't have to.
And I don't know if youremember Manute Bull?
Oh yeah, sure, and I didn'tknow him I was covering, I
didn't know if you rememberManute Bull oh, yeah, sure, and
I didn't know him.

(26:25):
I was covering the NBA playoffs.
The Suns were playing GoldenState and I had to do a feature
on Manute Bull for the news andI'll never forget.
This was a bad guy, good guy,guy thing, because I was with a
whole bunch of media people fromPhoenix and we're all you know,
we all travel together, we allhave drinks together, and the

(26:46):
night before I'd ask one of theother local guys from Phoenix
what time the press conferencewas the next morning.
He said 10 o'clock.
I said great.
So my camera guy and I showedup at 930 and the press
conference is over.

Papamutes (26:58):
Really.

Yeah, and that guy was waiting for me.
He was sitting in a chair withhis hands behind his head and
his feet stretched out.
He goes oh, are we a littlelate for the press conference?
And I went crap, and he did iton purpose and my cameraman was
a big guy and I thought he wasgoing to hurt him.
And I'm standing there going,how am I going to get my piece

(27:21):
done for the five o'clock news?
And at that point the mediawoman it was a woman at that
point, which was rare back thencame out and I explained what
happened, that I had a problemand I needed to see Manute Ball
and she said look, he's done forthe day.
He really, you know it's timefor him to go home.
But she goes.

(27:46):
But I'll tell him.
I'll tell him you're here, butI can't guarantee anything.
Damn, if manute ball didn'tcome out and he was charming and
kind and you're right, I had Iheld my microphone up and barely
touched his.
You know could pass the middleof his chest, but he was.
He didn't have to do that, hedidn't know me from anybody, but
he took his own personal timeand saved me.
And those are the things Iremember and some guys are just

(28:07):
nice people.
Jim Abbott, what a great guy.
Yeah sure.
Yeah, and I have to tell you, back in August
I fell and broke my arm inthree places and had pins and I
was so upset and so angry Icouldn't function.
It was a mess.
I had to have surgery and Iremember trying to tie my shoes

(28:28):
and I was so pissed I couldn'tdo anything.
And then I remembered aninterview with Jim Abbott and I
had him on a beautiful sunny dayin spring and here in
Scottsdale and uh, and I saidyou know, you know how do you do
things, how you know, cause hehad one arm and he said look, my
parents did not spoil me.
My parents said figure it out.

(28:48):
And I asked I said how do youtie your shoes?
He said you just keep trying totie your shoes.
And so I thought of him when Icouldn't tie my shoes and he was
the nicest guy in the world.

Papamutes (29:00):
Yeah, and for people who are not familiar with him,
he was a pitcher.
Yeah, he was a pitcher.

Do you remember the video of him fielding a
comebacker to the mound?
Yeah, with his glove.
I ran it frame by frame and hewould have the glove.
He would pitch, of course, withhis hand, and then he would

(29:27):
flip the glove from his not theone that didn't have a hand and
field the ball.
It was the most incrediblething I've ever seen.
Yeah, and you know, he said hegot into sports because he
didn't want to be different, andso it's those memories that I
have that make all of thatworthwhile.

Papamutes (29:34):
Do you think journalism has changed for the
better?

Of course not If you're talking about any
journalism.
It used to be.
If you didn't have three peopleverify a piece of information,
you didn't go with it.
Really, you had to have proof.
You didn't go on a hunch.
You didn't go because you wantto be the first that reported
something.
You reported on truth and Icould.
I ended up teaching journalismfor a long time.

(30:02):
It horrifies me that nobodyseems to care whether
something's true or not.
It's all about.
Well, if I get it first, thatmakes me great, and if I have to
retract it later, who cares?
That would have never flownback then.

Papamutes (30:14):
Do you think you need a degree in journalism nowadays
?

Not at all.
No, wow, no, honestly, no oneneeds a degree in journalism.
You need to know how to write,and that's what people don't
understand about sportsbroadcasting.
I taught sports broadcastingbriefly at Arizona State
University and they were shocked.
I said the most important thingin broadcasting is can you tell
a story?
Can you write a story?
Because we all say what wewrite.

(30:40):
I'm not talking about guysdoing live games, that's
different.
I'm talking about I'm doingSportsCenter.
All those are written storiesthat we have to write ahead of
time.
So in the course of any day Imight write dozens of stories.
Some might be 15 seconds long,some might be a minute and a
half, some might be four minutes.
It depends on what you're doing.
But we have to tell stories.
You have to be a writer, andthey're always shocked about

(31:02):
that.
They think, oh no, you can justhave your microphone to talk.
No, you can't.
That's not how that works.
You have to be a writer.

Papamutes (31:09):
Do you remember a story at ESPN, or your time at
ESPN, that was like a I don'tknow, a worldwide you know death
of an athlete or something thatwas a really big story that you
had to go on the air for?

Magic and AIDS.
I mean, that was pretty big.

Papamutes (31:27):
Yeah, still alive.

Yeah.

Papamutes (31:32):
N ow that's magical.

Who also was a great guy.
He, yeah, he's a good guy too.

Papamutes (31:39):
You know I can't, it's a blur I mean, you weren't
there for the OJ debacle, right?

No, no, where was I see?
I don't know I, you know, Ohwhen, what year was?

Papamutes (31:53):
1995 is when.
.

shadow

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#0000; --tw-shadow (31:55):
I was a print reporter by then.
Okay, um, I told you once I theidea for women in especially
sports broadcasting is that thetarget audience is 18 to
34-year-old males, and onceyou're over 35, you're not hot
enough to be on the air anymore.
Now they've gotten caught onthis, which is why you see older
women still being sportscasters.

(32:16):
In my time it's like no, Iworked for five TV stations and
suddenly I couldn't get a jobanywhere in the country.
So, yeah, you're just not hotenough anymore and I'll tell you
the honest truth, I wasdepressed.
I didn't want to see anybody Iknew.
I went from anchoringSportsCenter to coming back to
Phoenix and officiating PopWarner Football and Little

(32:38):
League, because those are theonly skills I had that anybody
would pay for.
Wow.
I did later end up working withthe Suns for two seasons, but
that was part-time.
That was just during the NBAseason.
That was fun.
But, yeah, I really didn't wantto see anyone I knew, because I
didn't want them to say whatare you doing?
And I'm like, I'm back toofficiating kids and I will say
this I became an official so Icould become a sports caster.

(33:00):
I never thought I'd be anofficial for 40 years, but I got
hooked on it.
I called my last high schoolfootball game in 2019.
The last 24 years I was areferee and crew chief.
So how many referees on afootball field Trick
Give me a number Well, refereesor officials.

There you go.
That's the difference.
It's the same in Pop Warner, inthe NFL.
Ok.
So the last 24 years of mycareer I was the referee and
crew chief, which means I worethe white hat.
I said holding 76 offense andsaid don't talk to the press box
, I was in charge.
I miss that desperately.
I don't miss TV.
I was a teacher for 20 years.
Don't talk to the press box, Iwas in charge.
I miss that desperately.
I don't miss TV.

(33:44):
I was a teacher for 20 years.
I don't miss that.
I miss Friday night football.

Papamutes (33:48):
Wow, how was the coin , the paycheck at ESPN?
I mean, when you went there wasit substantially more than a TV
station in I don't know.

Arizona it was, but it was nothing like they
paid the men.
I never made what the men made.
And then ESPN periodicallyfires a whole bunch of people at
a time, mostly because they aremaking too much money.
You usually sign a two-yeardeal and then it goes to another
two-year deal so they get ridof a lot of people and hire new

(34:21):
people at lower rates.
So I don't know, I just know asyou go up in market size.
So my first, columbus, georgia,was the 109th market in the
country.
I went from there to Rochester,new York, lovely town, 69th
market.
So I made a lot more there.
I made more than double what Imade in Georgia.
Then I went to Phoenix and madea lot more because Phoenix was

(34:45):
close to being a top 20 marketat that point.
So as you go, it's like minorleague baseball.
Okay, you start out in an Aball town and you eat crap food
and you stay in bad hotels andthen AA is a little better and
AAA is better, but everybodywants to be in the major leagues
and I guess I spent a couple ofyears in the major leagues at
ESPN.

Papamutes (35:01):
What, um, if you could go back in time and just
morph into a professional,official one sport, which would
it be?

Football probably, and originally
baseball was my favorite.
Um, I loved baseball, uh, but Iwill be deadly honest with you
I never want to get hit withanother baseball.
I would rather be run over bythree football players and be
hit with a baseball.

Papamutes (35:29):
So if you could flashback to college, the young
and Montgomery, what would youchange, If anything?

I mean, I know it's a hypothetical, but I, I,
you know, I have very fewregrets, but I, I, you know, I
have very few regrets very fewthings.

Papamutes (35:50):
I change, I, I, I just I don't know.

You know, I just advice for anyone that's in
the.
I mean keep going, keep going.
It was mostly when I was out ofcollege that it was frustrating
.
I mean, my family disowned mefor a couple of years.
My parents came down toWashington and tried to convince
me to go back to collegebecause I was such an
embarrassment that I was awaitress.
And I said no.
I said you don't understand.
I said I'm going to, I'm a, I'ma referee in an umpire and I'm
going to be a sportscaster.
And they said no, you're not.
My mother did, my dad didn't, mymother did.

(36:15):
And she said we'll send youback to school, you can be a
teacher.
I said I don't want to be ateacher, I want to be a
sportscaster.
And she said you'reembarrassing us.
What are we supposed to saywhen people ask about you?
Like, tell them I'm going to bea sportscaster and that I'm a
referee.
And my mother died last summerat two weeks shy of 99.
And it wasn't until maybe twoyears ago that my mother, she

(36:40):
read one of my books, or she wasreading my bio in my book, and
she goes oh my, you've donequite a few things in your life.
I'm like where have you been,mom?
Where have you been?
So yeah, it took till she wasabout 96.

Papamutes (36:53):
That's OK, never too late.

Yeah.

Papamutes (36:56):
Let's step outside the conversation a little bit.
I have a segment called this orthat.
It's just a preference thingReady.
I'm just going to give you acouple of choices.
It's preference, not hate onthe other one.
Okay, writing or reading.

Oh, how can I pick that?
That would be 50-50.
Come on, okay, writing, writing, because writing gives me joy.

Papamutes (37:26):
Reading entertains me .
Okay, pizza or pasta.

How can you do this?
How can I pick that?
That's easy, come on um pastayes, finally someone I grew up
with my dear friend growing up ahuge ital family from Sicily.
They adopted me.
Yeah, I got to save the pasta.

Papamutes (37:44):
Got to go pasta Cat or dog?

I can't do that .
I have four cats and two dogs.

Papamutes (37:51):
Sounds like a cat.
Thing.

No, no, that's just how many show up here.
No, we've had, we've had.
No, can't do that one.
I'm pleading the fifth.

Papamutes (38:01):
I may know the answer to this.
I could be wrong Ocean ordesert?

It might surprise you to know that I
can't pick that either.

Papamutes (38:10):
This is a lot of rage , I know.

Look, I'm a scuba diver.
I live in the Caribbean.
I go out my back door and thereis the Caribbean.
I love that.
But if you've never been in theSonoran Desert which is where
Phoenix is, outside of the city,not in the city it is
magnificently beautiful and Ihave a heart and, quite honestly
, I love the mountains too.
I'm an outdoor girl.

(38:33):
I like wilderness areas.
I'm a mineral collector, whichmeans I don't get to mineral
collect in the Virgin Islands,but here in Arizona I do.
I get to go out in wildernessareas.
I love it out there, so I'm notpicking that either.

Papamutes (38:48):
Oh my gosh, that's an outrage.
Driver or passenger.

Passenger All right, art museum.
I know that's right, it's okay.

Papamutes (38:58):
Art museum or history museum.

History museum.

Papamutes (39:02):
Credit card or cash.

Credit card, but I pay in full every month,
no interest.

Papamutes (39:10):
You have a celebrity crush, or did you ever have a
celebrity crush?

Jason Momoa is kind of hot.
Who Jason Momoa Aquaman?

Papamutes (39:23):
Oh yeah, Momoa Aquaman.
Oh yeah, Okay.

Not really.

Papamutes (39:28):
Any profession you would like to have tried, that
you haven't.

Yes, archaeology, I love history and
I love ancient history.
In fact, I have a book comingout that's about a man who was
buried outside of Flagstaff,arizona, 900 years ago and they
call him the magician.
And I have a novel coming out.
It was actually published awhile back, but now it's being
republished, so that just gotaccepted and should be coming

(39:55):
out sometime.
And yeah, it's about it'sarchaeology, so I had to study
pots and weapons.
And yeah, it's archaeology, soI had to study pots and weapons.
And yeah, in another life I'd bean archaeologist.

Papamutes (40:06):
Now your Forgotten Sons is self-published or
published.

Oh no, All my books are traditionally
published.
I have real publishers.
No, I don't have to pay thebills.
Cool Favorite season of the year.
If you had to pick one, well,when I lived in the East, it
would be fall, it would be fall,but I've mostly lived without

(40:32):
what you consider a season.
Sure, because I've lived inPhoenix for over 31 years and I
live in the Caribbean and ourseasons are, so they don't
change dramatically like your.
Spring, summer, winter, fall.
It's always tropical in thetropics, it's mostly always hot
in the desert, but as a kidgrowing up in New Jersey, I

(40:54):
loved the fall.

Papamutes (40:55):
Cool Favorite food.

Chocolate Is that a food?

Papamutes (41:02):
Works for me.
Uh, advice for a younger youdon't take everything so
seriously.

It will work out there you go.

Papamutes (41:16):
Yeah, good advice, good advice.
Now the book.
Your forgotten sons.
I mean, I ask this question allthe time and it's kind of
obvious online, but where canyou get the book?

places.
I have a website,annmontgomerywritercom that's
Ann with an E, and there's auniversal link to 10 places you
can buy it, so you can get itpretty much anywhere.
You know, you feel a bit like avoyeur reading someone else's
letters, and some were to hismom and some were to his
brother-in-law and his sister.
His sister was my friend,regina's mother, and she grew up
as a child.
His picture was on her livingroom wall and her mother would

(42:07):
tell stories about Bud and therewas always this things that
people didn't talk about.
It was mysterious, his deathwas mysterious, and so it was
something that the family youknow, they always knew there was
Uncle Bud, but people talkedabout him in hushed terms, and
so Regina was fascinated withhim as a child and wrote the

(42:27):
stories down as a child that hermother told her, and so, yeah,
it was just really important toher that we did this, and it was
a five-year project and we hadhoped to go to Europe and go to
Epinal where he's buried, butCOVID hit and so that didn't
happen.
But we did talk to thegentleman, the Marine, who runs
the cemetery in France, and hehelped us quite a bit with

(42:50):
research.

Papamutes (42:51):
Well, I mean, the little bit that I have read
really sucked me in, so I'mgoing to search it out myself.
I recommend it.
I appreciate you coming on,Anne.
This has been great.

Well, thank you for having me.

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Episode Transcript

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