Ex-Raider Chandler Finds a Co-Host Job Can Be Challenging

For Bob Chandler, former wide receiver and current TV personality, it was another night on the town.

No, he wasn’t taping a “Two on the Town” segment. He was at Trani’s Majestic Cafe in San Pedro, having dinner with second-year wide receivers Michael Young and Chuck Scott of the Rams.

Jim Everett, the team’s rookie quarterback, was supposed to join the group that also included a reporter and Terry Moore, Young’s former teammate at UCLA. But Everett got lost on the way, returned to his hotel and dined alone.

Fortunately for the Rams, Everett can find open receivers better than he can find his way around Southern California.

Meanwhile, Young and Scott listened intently as Chandler offered tips and counseling.

On the way to dinner, Chandler had said he would enjoy working with a young receiver and watching him develop. “I think I know something about receiving and could really help someone by just sitting down and talking with them once every other month or so.”

Spending an evening talking football is something Chandler probably wouldn’t have enjoyed much a year and a half ago. Burned out on sports, he gave up a promising sportscasting career to try something else.

Of course, that something else wasn’t exactly mundane work. He was hired by Channel 2 as Melody Rogers’ co-host on the highly rated show, “Two on the Town.”

The job has presented new challenges, and Chandler, for the most part, has welcomed them.

One challenge he wasn’t too keen on, however, was jumping off a cliff near Rio de Janeiro in a hang glider.

“I have never been so scared in my life,” Chandler said. “At first, I said I wouldn’t do it. Then some of that craziness in me came out and I agreed to do it.”

After landing, Chandler said on camera: “That was the greatest sensation I’ve ever experienced, even greater than winning the Super Bowl.”

Really? “Well, maybe I lied,” said Chandler, who was on the Raider team that beat the Philadelphia Eagles in January 1981.

Few things have come easily for Chandler, but he has usually found success, mainly because of determination and intellect.

He wasn’t the kind of athlete who just went out and performed naturally, never giving it much thought. Quite the opposite. And his attention to detail paid off.

He was a lightly recruited quarterback-defensive back at Whittier High but went on to star as a wide receiver at USC. He was a seventh-round draft choice in 1971 but went on to a successful NFL career while playing nine seasons with Buffalo and three with the Raiders.

And talk about determination: Chandler kept playing despite nine major operations, six on his knees, and a ruptured spleen in 1981, an injury that almost killed him.

A knee injury finally ended his career in 1983.

The same drive that made him excel as a football player is helping him make it in television, a field he chose even though he had picked up a law degree during the off-seasons early in his career.

He spent the 1983 season working part time for NBC as a football commentator and full time as the sports director of now-defunct ON TV. From there he went to Channel 7 as a sports reporter.

That’s when he began to sour on sports.

“You’ve heard and read a lot about the tough transition period athletes go through after they quit playing,” Chandler said. “That’s what I was going through. I hated going into locker rooms because I was an outsider. I felt awkward and out of place.

“And I didn’t enjoy going to the games. I’ve never really been the type of sports fan who is all wrapped up in winning and losing. The first college game I ever went to was one I was playing in. The first pro game I ever went to was one I was playing in.

“The appeal of sports for me is watching an individual extend himself, giving his absolute best. When I was playing, the fun part for me was going head to head with a defensive back and individually doing my best while at the same time helping the team win.”

Now he’s trying to do his best in television, and once again he is finding success.

TV-Radio Notes Sunday’s sellout for the Miami Dolphins-Rams game at Anaheim Stadium is good news for most Southern California football fans because it means the game will be televised locally by NBC. But it is bad news for the Raiders, whose gate for their home game with Kansas City, also Sunday, figures to be hurt by the Ram telecast. “Even if the Ram game weren’t being televised, having both teams home on the same day is not very intelligent scheduling,” said Al LoCasale, Raider executive assistant. . . . The NBC crew working Sunday’s Ram game also will work the Fiesta Bowl Jan. 2. “We are using Sunday’s game as a dress rehearsal,” announcer Charlie Jones said. Other members of the crew include commentators Jimmy Cefalo and Bob Griese, producer Ken Edmundson and director Andy Rosenberg.

Add Fiesta: When it was announced that the Fiesta Bowl would be televised in prime-time Jan. 2 and would pit No. 1-ranked Miami against No. 2-ranked Penn State, there was speculation that NBC might assign its No. 1 announcing team of Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen to the game. “I thought that might be the case too,” Jones said. “But I got a call from Mike Weisman (NBC Sports’ executive producer) right away assuring me that there would be no change in assignments.” Enberg and Olsen are assigned to the Rose Bowl. Jones will be working his seventh Fiesta Bowl.

There will be NFL football on both Saturday and Sunday the next two weekends. This Saturday, it’s Pittsburgh vs. the New York Jets on NBC at 9:30 a.m., with Enberg and Olsen reporting, followed by Washington at Denver on CBS at 1 p.m., with Pat Summerall and John Madden. The 10 a.m. game Sunday is San Francisco at New England, with Dick Stockton and Dan Dierdorf. . . . CBS and NBC will begin their college basketball coverage Saturday. CBS offers Arizona at Georgetown at 10:30 a.m., with NBC televising DePaul at Louisville following the Steeler-Jet football game. . . . The most significant news pertaining to CBS’ new deal to continue televising the NCAA basketball tournament is the amount of money involved. The current contract is worth $96 million over three years. The new one is worth $166 million over three years. Surely Pete Rozelle, who will begin negotiating a new contract with the networks early next year, took note of the increase.

Add NCAA-CBS: Because CBS worked out another exclusive deal, NBC figures to cut back on its college basketball coverage after this season. That could mean a parting between NBC and basketball commentator Al McGuire, whose contract expires next spring. McGuire and Ken Schanzer, executive vice president of NBC Sports, are scheduled to talk this weekend. . . . Add McGuire: He will be Bob Costas’ guest on “Costas Coast-to-Coast” on KMPC radio Sunday night at 6.

Former San Diego Chargers owner Eugene Klein, who this week won a $5-million award in his suit against Raider owner Al Davis, will be Roger Hedgecock’s guest on San Diego’s KSDO radio Monday at 11 a.m. Klein blamed Davis for his heart attack in 1982. . . . The Kings, winners of five of their last six games, will make two appearances on Prime Ticket this weekend, when they play Calgary at home Saturday night and Edmonton at home Sunday night. . . . KMPC has made a deal with Santa Anita to broadcast stretch calls during the racing meeting beginning Dec. 26. . . . Prime Ticket will televise UCLA’s game with St. John’s Saturday at Madison Square Garden at 4:30 p.m., a delay of five hours. Prime Ticket also will televise the Bruins’ game Monday at Temple, delayed until 8:30 p.m. The game is also being nationally televised at 8 by the USA network, but that telecast is subject to blackout in the Los Angeles area.

The Frankie Duarte-Bernardo Pinango World Boxing Assn. bantamweight title fight, set for Feb. 3 at the Forum, will be televised pay-per-view. The price is $12.. . . Ron Fairly, leaving the Angels to become the San Francisco Giants’ No. 1 announcer, is stepping into a tough spot. The man he is replacing, Hank Greenwald, was very popular with the fans and media in the Bay Area. Reportedly, Greenwald’s contract was not renewed because of an ongoing dispute with Bill Dwyer, general manager of the Giants’ flagship radio station, KNBR.