He’s More Than a Follower of Hearn

If he worked in any other city, Ralph Lawler would enjoy celebrity status.

But since Lawler, Los Angeles’ other NBA play-by-play announcer, works in the same city as the Lakers’ Chick Hearn, he is little more than the answer to a trivia question.

Nearly everyone knows who Hearn is, but you may be able to stump your friends with this one: “Who is the voice of Clippers?”

That, however, is changing. As the Clippers earned their first playoff berth in 16 years,the man who has been their voice for 12 is finally getting a little well-deserved recognition.

Lawler has his own consecutive-game streak. Sometime late next season, he will hit 1,000. That would be big news in a lot of places, but when the guy across town has gone past 2,500, Lawler’s 1,000 might not even make the small type.

Lawler, though, says he’s not in the business for recognition.

Early in his career, he announced high school sports in Riverside.

“I didn’t get much recognition then, and those were the happiest years of my life,” he said.

“A lot of guys might like to see themselves on television or hear themselves on radio. I’m in it because of my love for basketball. I’m just amazed they pay me for going to pro basketball games. But I’m glad they do.”

Lawler grew up in Peoria, Ill., which seems to spawn sportscasters. Bill King, Tom Kelly and Bob Starr are a few who worked there. Channel 9 newsman Jerry Dunphy worked there, and so did Bob Arthur, formerly of KABC radio. And so did Hearn.

Lawler, who is 6 feet 3, was a basketball star at Peoria Central High. When his team went to the state tournament, the games were on the radio, and the announcer was Hearn.

Lawler got a basketball scholarship to DePauw in Greencastle, Ind., and played there for one season, then transferred to Bradley, which is in Peoria. He redshirted one year, but couldn’t crack a lineup that included Chet Walker, who went on to star in the NBA, and Bobby Joe Mason, longtime Harlem Globetrotter.

The Bradley announcer in those days was that fellow named Hearn.

After graduation, Lawler worked for Peoria television station WEEK, where Hearn previously worked.

Lawler has something else in common with Hearn. Asked his age, Lawler said he would just as soon not say.

Lawler spent the early part of his career in Riverside and San Diego. He went to Philadelphia for a five-year stint in the mid-1970s.

While there, all he did was 76er basketball, Flyer hockey, Temple football, Big Five college basketball and serve as the sports director for the city’s CBS-owned television and radio stations.

He went one nine-month stretch without a day off. It was a work schedule that eventually cost him an 18-year marriage.

He returned to San Diego in 1978, the year the Buffalo Braves moved there. Irv Kaze, the San Diego Clippers’ first general manager, hired Lawler as the play-by-play announcer.

When the Clippers moved to Los Angeles in 1984, Lawler stayed behind in San Diego and worked in real estate, although he did a dozen Clipper radio broadcasts as a fill-in that first season in Los Angeles.

The next season, Carl Scheer, then the general manager, brought Lawler to Los Angeles as the full-time voice of the Clippers.

Lawler said that even during the lean times, he never considered doing anything else.

“I’ve always loved going to the games,” he said, “The difference now is that, for once at this stage of the season, they mean something. And that’s a great feeling.”

Although Lawler has been a constant in the play-by-play seat, his commentary partners have been playing musical chairs this season.

Lawler, who is on radio with Rich Marotta for games not on Channel 13, has sometimes worked with Mike Fratello on television, sometimes with Bill Walton, and sometimes with both.

After Walton was fired by Channel 13 for missing a couple of assignments, Lawler was paired with an array of commentators--Dan Issel, Marques Johnson and Hubie Brown.

Lawler will work with Fratello on the Channel 13 telecast tonight, when the Clippers play at Golden State, and Brown will be the commentator on Sunday’s telecast from the Forum, since Fratello has an NBC commitment.

Fratello gives a lot of credit to Lawler for his fast rise in broadcasting. The two were paired last season when Channel 5 carried the Clippers, and it was also Fratello’s first season with NBC.

“Ralph wasn’t afraid to tell me what I was doing wrong,” Fratello said. “He could have taken the approach where he did his job and let me do mine, but he chose to help me, and I really appreciated that.”

The Clippers lost another commentator this week when Jerry Tarkanian took the San Antonio Spurs’ coaching job. Fratello worked Thursday night’s SportsChannel telecast with Joel Meyers, but Tarkanian has told SportsChannel he would like to work playoff telecasts, if his schedule permits.

TV-Radio Notes

Sunday night’s Laker-Clipper game will be televised by both Channel 13 and Prime Ticket. . . . Channel 13’s overly artsy Clipper telecasts--floor-level camera angles and so forth--have drawn the ire of some viewers. “I think some people like low angles, as long as we don’t overdo them, but I know some people prefer the fixed-camera shots,” producer-director Dave Goetz said. The feeling here is, during live action, stick to the basic, center-court shot. Switching to a low-level shot tends to disorient the viewer. CBS was using floor-level shots extensively during NBA games in the early 1980s but eventually scrapped them.

Developments continue at KMPC as it closes in on April 27, the proposed start-up date for the new all-sports format. It appears that Joe McDonnell and Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Doug Krikorian will end up doing a mid-day show, although McDonnell has told program director Len Weiner he would like to be out in the field, reporting from game sites. “Joe does a lot of things well, and we’d like him out breaking stories,” Weiner said. “But I think he’ll end up in the studio. Or maybe he’ll do both.”

Steve Yeager is in line to be a part of what Weiner calls a “Baseball Tonight” type program, beginning at 6 p.m., after Jim Healy. A main night-time host has yet to be found. Although Weiner is high on Todd Christensen, he may be too high-priced for that role. Christensen lives in rural Utah, and it may take quite a bit to get him to move back to Los Angeles. Christensen is also concerned about uprooting at this time because his 4-year-old son, Teren, who has spina bifida, recently had surgery.

By the way, Scott St. James isn’t being demoted. He said he likes the idea of moving to mornings with Robert W. Morgan. For one thing, the hours allow him to pursue his acting career. For another, he and Morgan are longtime friends. “I think they’ll be terrific together,” General Manager Bill Ward said. . . . Veteran Larry Kahn figures to have a role in the new format and his former partner at KFOX-FM and KORG, up-and-coming Mike Lamb, may end up with a minor role. Look for Geoff Witcher to surface as well. . . . Seattle sportscaster Nancy Donnellan, a candidate at one time, is out of the picture. . . . Ann Meyers, who did a nice job for CBS on both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournament, might be back next season as the UCLA basketball commentator.

ESPN couldn’t televise Wednesday night’s Angel game at Texas because of contractual restrictions. To protect the local packages, ESPN can’t show the Dodgers and Angels in Los Angeles except on Sundays, when all restrictions are off. So the ESPN telecast of the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves Sunday night will be shown here. . . . Continental cable systems are among those that, because of pre-existing contract commitments, have not yet begun offering SportsChannel’s new triplex format, in which the less attractive programming is on basic cable.

Pete Rose and Fred Claire are scheduled to be Irv Kaze’s guests on his new “Talking Sports” show on KIEV (870) tonight at 7. . . . Sportscaster Ed Arnold, in his film debut, plays himself in “Final Shot: The Hank Gathers Story,” which will be shown on Channel 5 next Wednesday at 8 p.m. . . . ESPN and Top Rank celebrate the 12th anniversary of television’s longest-running boxing series next Thursday at 6 p.m. when Tommy Morrison faces Kimmuel Odum.