Lantz Makes Most of Time Between the Dribble-Drives

Working alongside Chick Hearn is sort of like taking Brooke Shields to a college dance. Nobody is going to notice you.

So in case you haven’t noticed, that person working alongside Hearn on Laker telecasts and broadcasts this season is Stu Lantz, 41. If you’ve paid close attention, you might have noticed Lantz sometimes gets to say a few words.

And, if you’ve paid real close attention, you might have noticed he says more than just, “That’s right, Chick,” and that he offers some insight.

But if you haven’t noticed, Lantz probably will understand. He has spent most of his life going unnoticed.

He’s from Uniontown, Pa., population 14,500, and he played basketball at Nebraska. At football-mad Nebraska, it is hard for a basketball player to get noticed.

Still, the then-San Diego Rockets noticed Lantz and made him a third-round draft pick in 1968. He played for the Rockets for four seasons, three in San Diego and one after the team moved to Houston. His best season was 1970-71, when he averaged 20.6 points a game.

He played for the Detroit Pistons for two seasons, then was released. Then, as a free agent, it was on to the New Orleans Jazz, where a fellow of by the name of Pete Maravich drew most of the attention.

After a few months, the Jazz traded Lantz to the Lakers. But you may have not noticed him then, either. He was on the 1974-75 team that went 30-52 and missed the playoffs. He played behind guards Gail Goodrich and Lucius Allen, who averaged 22.6 and 19.5 points a game. Lantz averaged 9.3.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar arrived the next season, and the team improved to 40-42. But Lantz averaged only 4.7 points.

The next season, Lantz sat out with a back injury. Then he retired from basketball.

The people around the Forum have sure noticed Lantz, though, and they speak highly of him. The descriptions most often heard: “A really nice guy,” and “very intelligent.”

Said Hearn: “His knowledge of the game is superb, and he’s always well prepared. There’s nothing I’m afraid to ask him.

“I think he’s exceptional, as good as anybody I’ve ever had. He’s not afraid to speak up and give his view. He’s not a yes man, and I like that.”

Lantz lives in San Diego, so he has a long commute to home games. He’s part-owner of a small company in La Jolla, Micro Electronics Components. He has a wife, Linda, and three children: Todd, 20, Kristin, 18, and Shane, 13.

After his playing career ended, Lantz, getting some encouragement from friends, got into broadcasting. He first worked a few regional college games for CBS, then, after the Buffalo Braves moved to San Diego and became the Clippers, he was hired by the team as a television commentator.

He later worked Nevada Las Vegas games on television, something Hearn also does when time permits.

Hearn and Lantz worked a few games together. Said Hearn: “I liked Stu the very first time I worked with him.”

Keith Erickson, the Lakers’ commentator for seven seasons, retired last off-season, and Hearn recommended Lantz. They worked a few summer league games for Prime Ticket, and that clinched it.

“Things have gone so well this season it’s unbelievable,” Lantz said on the phone from his La Jolla office. “There were people who thought Chick and I wouldn’t work well together. I’m a pretty strong-willed person.

“But we haven’t had any problems. Sure, we disagree about something on the air at times, but we’ve never had an argument off the air.”

About not getting much air time, Lantz said: “If we were doing just straight TV, then there would be more time for me to talk. But we’re also talking to a radio audience, and Chick has to supply a picture for the listeners. I realize that.”

Lantz said he has nothing to complain about. “I’m working with the best announcer in the business and for the best team in the business,” he said. “You can’t do much better than that.”

Add Lakers: Game 1 tonight and Game 2 Sunday night of the playoff series against San Antonio will be televised by Prime Ticket.

TBS, which will televise 26 National Basketball Assn. playoff games over the next six weeks, offers New York-Boston tonight at 5:05. TBS is also televising the Laker-San Antonio game at the Forum, but it will be blacked out in Los Angeles.

On Saturday, Houston-Dallas will be carried by CBS at 12:30 p.m. and Washington-Detroit by TBS at 5:05. CBS offers a playoff doubleheader Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m. with New York-Boston, followed by Cleveland-Chicago.

TV-Radio Notes

Bud Greenspan’s “16 Days of Glory,” will be carried by PBS in six segments on successive Wednesdays, beginning July 20. The showings have been made possible through a $1-million grant by Seagrams. . . . KFI sportscaster Chris Roberts will be the host of his station’s new sports talk show, to debut in late July. KFI is now the Raiders’ flagship station, and the talk show will be part of the station’s promotional programming. . . . Recommended viewing: Channel 9 will televise a 1-hour special, “The World Champion Los Angeles Lakers: From the Inside Out,” Saturday night at 7. Roy Firestone narrates. Ted Green is the writer and producer.

ESPN’s 15-game Arena Indoor Football League schedule will begin Saturday at 7:30 p.m., when the cable network televises a game between the Los Angeles Cobras and New York Knights from the Sports Arena. The producer-director will be Chet Forte, longtime director of ABC’s “Monday Night Football” who quit after the 1986 season.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” he said this week of his abrupt resignation. “I have no beef with anyone at ABC. After 17 years, it was time for me to get out. Roone Arledge was gone, and along with him the heart and soul of ABC Sports. Chuck Howard and Jim Spence (two high-ranking executives) were also gone.” Forte, who suffered a heart attack earlier this year, is now partners with Lou LaRose in a New York production company that owns the rights to Arena Football, among other things.

TBS has announced that it will televise a 2-hour baseball special July 11, the night before baseball’s All-Star game in Cincinnati. The special will include live coverage of baseball’s All-Star party that night at the Cincinnati Zoo. . . . Comedian Robert Klein will be the host of another special, “Baseball’s All-Star Comedy Classics ‘88,” which will be syndicated to stations for showing between July 2 and 12. Blair Entertainment is syndicating the show. . . . ESPN’s seven hours of pro football draft coverage Sunday drew a 3.6 Nielsen rating. In previous years, when the draft was televised on Tuesdays, the highest rating was a 1.9 in 1983.

Early indications are the Desert Scramble pay-per-view golf event last Monday attracted only about 50,000 subscribers, below the 65,000 needed to break even. Rick Kulis, president of Choice Entertainment, the distributor of the show, said he was not discouraged. . . . ABC boxing commentator Alex Wallau, who is suffering from throat cancer, is scheduled to work the USA-Cuba amateur matches at Atlantic City, N.J., this weekend. The coverage will be part of Saturday’s “Wide World of Sports.” . . . Channel 13’s Mike Chamberlin, who recently was nominated for a local Emmy for his work as the host of the 1987 L.A. Marathon telecast, will appear on ESPN tonight at 5:30 as co-host with ESPN’s Marty Reid of a taped off-road racing telecast. The event, the Seattle stop of the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Championship Gran Prix series, was held April 9.

Among a long list of local sports Emmy nominations was one for Fred Roggin’s year-end special, “Sports Bowl ’87.” Channel 4’s John Varvi, who co-produced the show with Roggin, has been promoted to senior producer in charge of on-air promotions. . . . Bill Seward, former Loyola Marymount radio play-by-play announcer who was also the football coach at St. Bernard High School in Playa del Rey, has been hired as a sportscaster for a television station in Concord, N.H. Seward, 29, had been working for Channel 63 in Oxnard.