Even Against Irish, Kelly Airs 25 Years of Loyalty to USC

In 1961, Tom Kelly came to Los Angeles from Peoria, Ill., coincidentally following Chick Hearn out here from the same city, although it was Jack Buck, not Hearn, who recommended Kelly for a job at radio station KNX.

Kelly has been announcing USC football ever since. This is his 25th season, and Saturday, he’ll work his 25th USC-UCLA game.

His first year on the job, Kelly was the Trojan commentator and Hearn the play- by-play announcer. But Hearn gave up that position after the season because of growing radio commitments to the Lakers.

So Kelly became the Trojan play-by-play announcer in 1962. Since then, there have been five national championships--1962, ‘67, ‘72, ’74 and ‘78--and four Heisman Trophy winners--Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson, Charles White and Marcus Allen.

In 1961, when Kelly was the commentator, the Trojans were 4-5. In 1983, they were 4-6-1. They are currently 4-5 in 1985, so this could be another losing season. It would be only the third in Kelly’s 25 years with the Trojans.

“It’s been a great association,” Kelly said.

There are those who don’t think Kelly’s association with USC has been all that great. Like any announcer, Kelly has critics. He’s too opinionated, they say. He gets carried away. He’s a Trojan honk. Although he’ll criticize officials, he never complains about a call that favors USC.

Kelly has heard them all. “But I must be doing something right,” he said. “I’ve had this job for 25 years.”

As for being a Trojan honk, meaning he too often blows the horn for USC, Kelly said: “When you get wrapped up with a team, with a university, as I have for so long, you begin to live or die with them.”

His overt loyalty sometimes irritates listeners, particularly UCLA and Notre Dame fans. But when things are going bad for the Trojans, Kelly says so.

Early in the second period of USC’s 14-6 loss to Cal this season, Kelly could foresee disaster. “I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say the Trojans look terrible,” he said on the air.

“They’re flat,” said broadcasting partner Fred Gallagher.

“You’re too kind, Fred,” Kelly said.

Also, he’s not afraid to be critical of USC’s football coach. He let it be known on the air this season that he didn’t like Ted Tollner’s decision to go for a first down against Notre Dame on fourth-and-four at the Irish 45 with nine minutes left in the first half and the Trojans trailing by only 14-0.

As for being too hard on officials for calls that go against USC, Kelly said: “I don’t go along with that. I think if you reviewed my tapes, you’d see I criticize officials whenever I think it’s a bad call, whether it’s against USC or not.”

If it plays in Peoria, it’ll play anywhere. You may have heard that one. Well, it really holds true for sportscasters.

Besides Kelly and Hearn, others from Peoria include Raider announcer Bill King and Ram announcer Bob Starr. Also, announcers Jack Brickhouse and Vince Lloyd went from Peoria to the Chicago Cubs.

“When I was there, it was a tough, competitive market,” Kelly said. “Bradley basketball was big then, and the Peoria Caterpillars won a couple of AAU national basketball championships. The Cats were even bigger than Bradley.”

Kelly said his broadcasting career began while he was attending Northland University, a small liberal arts school in Ashland, Wis. “I was on the football team, but I hurt my shoulder and couldn’t play,” Kelly said. “So I spotted for the radio announcer. That led to announcing and, as they say, the rest is history.”

Add Kelly: He’s no longer doing the 10 o’clock sports news for Channel 11. Kelly was told last week his contract will not be renewed. He said the reason given him was that the station wants to use former Dodger Rick Monday on both the 8 o’clock and 10 o’clock news to solidify its relationship with the Dodgers. Monday had been doing only the 8 o’clock.

Kelly does four daily afternoon sports spots for KNX, Monday through Friday, at 4:15, 4:45, 5:15 and 5:45. For the last two years, he was working at both KNX and Channel 11.

Notes CBS planned to give Los Angeles the Chicago Bears (11-0) against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday at 10 a.m., but the NFL intervened. The league thought L.A. deserved the New England Patriots against the New York Jets on NBC at 10 a.m., so it requested that CBS show the Philadelphia Eagles-Dallas Cowboys game here at 1 p.m. Had CBS televised the Bears and Falcons here, NBC would have had to give L.A. the Indianapolis Colts-Kansas City Chiefs game, a real dud. . . . Thanksgiving Day football lineup: New York Jets at Detroit Lions, 9:30 a.m. on NBC; St. Louis Cardinals at Dallas Cowboys, 1 p.m. on CBS, and a college game, Texas at Texas A&M;, 5 p.m. on ESPN.

If hard-hitting football appeals to you, “NFL Crunch Course” on Channel 4 Saturday at 1 p.m. is recommended viewing. It’s a study of pro football’s hardest hitters and another slick, well-edited show from NFL Films. But the timing of it isn’t too good. The film opens with Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann being laid out by the Raiders’ Mike Davis and closes with a feature on extra-tough New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, the player who accidentally broke Theismann’s leg Monday night. . . . The Rams got an L.A. Nielsen rating of 18.0 last Sunday, and the San Diego-Denver game that followed drew a 16.0. The Chicago-Dallas game, which wasn’t shown here, got a rating of 39.3 in Chicago and, amazingly, a 46.7 in Dallas, even though the Cowboys took a 44-0 beating. . . . “Monday Night Football” got another solid national Nielsen rating this week, a 19.4.

CBS has been getting better ratings than ABC on college football this season, and just when it appeared that ABC finally would have a winner last Saturday with Penn State-Notre Dame, the game became a blowout. Iowa-Purdue on CBS turned out to be a thriller, and CBS again got the better L.A. Nielsen rating with a 5.3 compared to ABC’s 4.3. . . . Attention Canadian Football League fans: Sunday’s Grey Cup game between Hamilton and British Columbia will be televised on a delayed basis on the “SCORE SportsWatch” show on the Financial News Network Sunday at 6 p.m. About 500,000 homes in the L.A. market are now able to get “SCORE SportsWatch,” which represents about 40% of the cable households in the area.

The Los Angeles Sportscasters Assn. honored longtime L.A. sportscaster Chuck Benedict, a two-time past president. Benedict does features and files sideline reports on Ram radio broadcasts. Those in attendance Thursday included Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen of NBC, George Allen, the former Ram and Washington Redskins coach, and Tom Harmon, the first president of the sportscasters’ association.

Wayne Welk, whose firm produced the radio broadcasts of Cal State Fullerton games, had to drop the package last week for financial reasons. That meant Fullerton administrators had to scramble to get Saturday night’s game against Northern Arizona on the air, offering to pay for air time on station KWOW (1600) out of the athletic department budget. Welk, who also did the play-by-play, was replaced by Mel Franks, the Titan sports information director. Franks’ assistant, Ron Fremont, did the commentary. The school has arranged for the Titans’ next two games, against Cal State Long Beach and University of Pacific at the Santa Ana Bowl, to be carried on KWOW. The announcers will be Eric Nelson and Wes Morgan, the announcers for Fullerton games on Titan cable. Now it will be a radio-TV simulcast. . . . Hollywood Park’s nightly shows with Dan Kenny and Dave Dangler, on Channel 56 weeknights at 7:30 and weekends at 8 p.m., are now also being carried by Prime Ticket Network, usually at 10:15 p.m.