Summerall to Come Back : Television: CBS sportscaster will return to work after undergoing 35-day treatment for alcohol abuse.

The voice on the phone was crisp.

“I’ve haven’t felt this good in a long time,” CBS sportscaster Pat Summerall said Friday from his hotel room in White Plains, N.Y.

Summerall, who completed a 35-day treatment program for alcohol abuse at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage on May 20, returns to television today.

He will be working on CBS’ coverage of the Buick Classic golf tournament at the Westchester Country Club.

Summerall, 61, who has been at CBS for 32 years, was known as a heavy drinker.

“I liked to go out with the guys, stay out, laugh and have a good time,” Summerall said. “I enjoyed it.”

He never viewed himself as having a drinking problem.

But on Dec. 9, 1990, a bleeding ulcer almost killed him. The ulcer ruptured after he had broadcast an NFL game in Washington and was flying home to Florida.

On a flight to Atlanta, where he was to switch planes, he had a couple of drinks and began vomiting.

While waiting to board a plane for Jacksonville, he vomited again, and after boarding the plane, he coughed up blood.

He ended up in a Jacksonville hospital, and was told: “If you drink, you die.”

That scared Summerall--at least for a while.

He said Friday that, after seven months, he began to think: “I’ve beaten this.”

He didn’t tell anyone, but he began to feel invincible. And he started to drink.

“I drank in private,” he said.

For someone as visible as Summerall, that was difficult. Strangers noticed him ordering drinks in bars or on airplanes.

“Sure, that happened,” he said. “I just didn’t drink in front of anyone I knew.

“But drinking was no longer any fun. I didn’t enjoy it.”

His wife, Kathy, and some of his close friends knew Summerall was sneaking drinks.

They began to tell him he needed help, that he couldn’t do beat this thing alone.

“There were about 10 people, counting Kathy, telling me this,” Summerall said.

He said none were CBS colleagues. Summerall said his football broadcast partner, John Madden, and others at CBS were not aware that he was drinking.

“No, I really didn’t know,” Madden said from his office in Pleasanton, Calif. “I’m not one to really look for anything like that, but when it came out that he was drinking again, it surprised me.”

Those who knew Summerall was drinking finally got through to him. After he worked the Masters, Summerall checked into the Betty Ford Center on April 15.

“When I first got there, I was angry,” Summerall said. “I didn’t want to be there. I was angry at myself, and I was angry at the people who made me go.

“But after a couple of days, the anger disappeared, and I knew I belonged there.

“The toughest thing, No. 1, is getting up in front of other people and saying, ‘Hi, I’m Pat, and I’m an alcoholic.’

“The other thing, and maybe I have these in the wrong order, is admitting you are not the only power and that you need help from a higher power, whatever you consider that higher power to be.”

Summerall, who was impressed with how active Betty Ford was is in the center, now is somewhat of a spokesman for rehabilitation centers in general.

“I’ve told many people that, even if you don’t have a problem, going through a program like I did is very beneficial. It gives you a good look at yourself. It makes you a better person, more concerned about the people around you.”

Summerall’s battle isn’t over. He is now attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has changed his lifestyle.

“I can’t be the same guy I was. That other guy was killing himself.”