Stockton Is Solid, With Little Fanfare, on NBA Telecasts

Some announcers you like, some you don’t.

But Dick Stockton usually doesn’t elicit strong opinions one way or the other. He just quietly goes about his business without drawing much attention to himself.

“That’s what I try to do,” the CBS announcer said the other day. “I’m there to report and interpret and to blend in with my analyst. It’s certainly not my show.”

You’ll hear Brent Musburger use I and me with almost every breath. “ I asked Isiah Thomas and he told me ,” Musburger will say.

Also, Musburger, particularly since signing a $1.8-million contract a couple of years ago, seems to think he has to put his stamp on everything by giving his opinion.

Some people may like Musburger’s style. But Stockton’s is preferred here.

Stockton, working the Laker-Piston series with Billy Cunningham, plays it straight, and he does a solid job.

Stockton, who also announces pro football and other sports, is concluding his seventh year doing National Basketball Assn. games, and he now knows the sport well.

Some of the criticism directed at former partners Bill Russell and Tom Heinsohn used to trickle down to Stockton, but this season, Stockton and Cunningham have received mainly praise.

Stockton is a nice person who doesn’t let his ego show. He is popular among colleagues, although some say he is overly sensitive and tends to be insecure.

Broadcasting is no place for a sensitive, insecure person, and if he is, Stockton hides it well during an interview.

“I don’t think I’m insecure,” he said. “I’m confident I’ll always have a job. And what do you mean by sensitive? You mean sensitive about criticism?

“I’m aware that comes with the territory. I’d never call up a reporter who has criticized me. I think I roll with the punches pretty well.”

A year ago, on the eve of Game 1 of the Laker-Celtic championship series, it was reported that Neal Pilson, the president of CBS Sports, had talked with NBC’s Marv Albert about eventually replacing Stockton as the lead announcer on the NBA. The talks did take place, but NBC later re-signed Albert. And CBS re-signed Stockton.

The day the story was printed, Stockton saw the reporter who wrote it, and he was as gracious as always.

“If I was overly sensitive, don’t you think I would have shown it then,” he said.

Stockton was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Forest Hills, N.Y., the son of a printer.

He went to Syracuse to study journalism but decided to become a sports announcer after getting a job at the campus radio station during his freshman year.

He started his broadcasting career in Philadelphia radio in 1965, and later, when he was the sports director at WBZ-TV in Boston, he did television play-by-play for the Boston Red Sox.

During the 1975 World Series, he met Lesley Visser, a sportswriter for the Boston Globe. They had one date.

Then, during the 1982 Boston-Philadelphia NBA playoff series, they met again on a shuttle flight. They were married the next January.

Visser is still with the Globe, and also works for CBS Sports.

In 1984, Laker Coach Pat Riley introduced Stockton to agent Ed Hookstratten. Shortly after that, Stockton became one of Hookstratten’s clients.

“Dick is a very talented announcer,” Hookstratten said. “But what impresses me the most is how hard he works. He is meticulous in his preparation.”

Said Stockton: “The real challenge of this business, for me, anyway, is gathering the information and then working it into a telecast in a natural way.

“I write everything down on a chart that I have in front of me. I may not read the chart, but I know it’s there. If I use 20% of that information, I’m doing pretty good.

“The key is being prepared. When an announcer isn’t prepared, that’s when he says things like, ‘Some kind of player,’ and, ‘He can do it all.’ ”

Stockton says that even though he knows a lot about both the Lakers and the Pistons, he still spends hours preparing for each telecast. “It’s not fun,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work. The easy part is the 2 1/2 hours we’re on the air.”

TV-Radio Notes

Besides Game 3 of the Laker-Piston series Sunday at 12:30 p.m., the other big event this weekend is Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. ABC’s coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. Post time will be about 2:30. . . . ESPN will televise a Belmont special, beginning at 12:30. . . . Kudos to ESPN for the job it has done on the College World Series. The announcing and camera work have been outstanding. CBS, because it paid a $500,000 rights fee, will take over coverage for Saturday’s championship game, weather permitting. Under a new format, the winners of double-elimination play in the East and West brackets play one game for the title. The CBS announcers will be Brent Musburger--he’s everywhere--and Rick Monday. Musburger, introduced to the College World Series crowd in Omaha Wednesday night, was soundly booed. Said public address announcer Jack Payne: “It sounds, Brent, as if you’d better not run for office in Omaha.”

Call her a brave lady: Jackie Autry will field calls from Angel fans on Bob Rowe’s “Angel Talk” on KMPC from 6 to 7 tonight. . . . Jim Murray will be Michael Jackson’s guest on KABC radio today. . . . Jerry West and John Wooden will be Bob Costas’ guest on his “Coast to Coast” on KFI Sunday at 6 p.m. . . . Robbie Sims, Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s half-brother, fights Sumbu Kalambay on NBC’s “SportsWorld” Sunday at 1 p.m. and Hagler will work Sims’ corner. After the fight, Hagler will talk about his boxing future. . . . NBC’s Gayle Gardner Thursday taped an interview with Joe Pepitone, who is serving a six-month sentence in a New York state prison for a 1986 conviction for possession of Quaaludes. The interview will be shown during Saturday’s baseball pregame show at noon.

ABC announced at its affiliates meetings at the Century Plaza Hotel this week that it will televise “Monday Night Football” at 5 p.m. during the Olympics to combat NBC’s coverage from Seoul. NBC’s nighttime coverage will begin at 4:30. . . . Attention, soccer fans: Channel 34 will carry nine European Soccer Championship games, delayed, beginning tonight at 11 with West Germany vs. Italy. The final is scheduled for June 25.

Jack Nicklaus makes two appearances on ABC this weekend. Saturday from 5 to 6 p.m., he picks his 18 toughest holes. Sunday at 3 p.m., Nicklaus previews next week’s U.S. Open. . . . Turner Broadcasting and the Southeastern Conference have agreed to a two-year extension, providing TBS with 10 to 12 live SEC football games a season. . . . Tuesdays at 5 p.m., beginning next week, ESPN will carry a 13-week “Classic Summer” series, highlighting summer water sports. The series is produced by DynoComm Sports of Mission Viejo, and the co-hosts are Channel 13’s Mike Chamberlin and former Miss America Sharlene Wells-Hawkes.