NBC’s Jones: From Big Hurt to Big Game

A little more than a year ago, in late August, Charlie Jones was called to New York by his bosses at NBC and told he was being taken off golf in favor of Jim Lampley.

“I thought they were going to tell me what a good job I had done on the Olympics,” Jones said this week.

Jones was stunned by what they really wanted to tell him, to say the least. But he rolled with the punches.

“Sure, it hurt,” Jones says now. “But what could I do about it?”

Jones kept his anger under wraps, didn’t publicly complain and took the attitude that things would work out.

“Charlie Jones is one of the all-time classiest guys,” Lampley said at the time, echoing the sentiment of many around NBC.

Turns out, Jones’ positive approach paid off.

NBC gave Jones a new contract that allowed him to take on more outside work, and he ended up as the Colorado Rockies’ television play-by-play announcer, a job Jones loves.

And now he is embarking on probably the biggest event of his 34-year network sportscasting career. He and Todd Christensen will call Saturday’s Florida State-Notre Dame game.

The assignment fell Jones’ way somewhat by accident.

Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth were NBC’s Notre Dame announcers last year, but Collinsworth’s straightforward, often critical style reportedly wasn’t greeted very fondly by Notre Dame officials in general and Coach Lou Holtz in particular.

Notre Dame announcers apparently aren’t supposed to criticize Notre Dame.

Any disenchantment with Collinsworth may or may not have had anything to do with it--an NBC spokesman said the network simply wanted to give the telecasts different looks--but Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, and Terry O’Neal, the former executive producer, came up with a plan in which the Notre Dame announcers would be rotated this season.

“This way, they could get around the perception that there’s a Notre Dame announcing team,” Jones theorized.

Three announcing teams were scheduled to announce two home games each. Dick Enberg and Bob Trumpy drew the first two--against Northwestern and Michigan State--Hammond and Collinsworth the second two--against Pittsburgh and USC--with Jones and Christensen getting the last two--against Florida State and Boston College.

But when it became obvious that the Florida State game would be something special, Jones and Christensen were bumped up to the USC game so they would be acclimated for the Florida State game three weeks later. Hammond and Collinsworth in turn were given the final home game against Boston College.

“Tom and Chris might not be too thrilled about how things worked out, but Todd and I sure are,” Jones said.

*

Jones is not yet calling Saturday’s 10:30 a.m. meeting between No. 1 Florida State and No. 2 Notre Dame the biggest event he has worked.

“It’s not on the top of my list yet, because it hasn’t been played,” said Jones, who has been doing network sports since calling American Football League games for ABC in 1960. “But I have a feeling it will be there after Saturday.”

Here is Jones’ current top 10:

1) The Rockies’ home opener, an 11-4 victory over Montreal that drew a record 80,227.

2) The Buffalo Bills’ 41-38 overtime playoff victory over Houston last January, the greatest comeback in NFL history.

3) The 1991 Ryder Cup, in which the United States team brought the Cup back to America.

4) Penn State winning the national championship with a 14-10 victory over Miami in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl.

5) Pablo Morales winning the 100-meter butterfly at the 1992 Olympics.

6) Argentina’s 3-2 victory over West Germany in the 1986 World Cup final.

7) Ben Johnson’s 9.79 world record in the 100 meters at the 1988 Olympics, a record that stood for only 48 hours before Johnson was suspended after testing positive for steroid use.

8) The Denver Broncos’ 26-24 playoff victory over Houston (John Elway, Drive II) in 1992.

9) Greg Louganis winning a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics after hitting his head earlier in the competition.

10) Green Bay beating Kansas City, 35-10, in Super Bowl I.

*

Talk radio: Steve Mason and Rick Schwartz, co-hosts of XTRA’s entertaining nighttime program, “Too Much Show,” recently had a “Too Much” experience.

Mason and Schwartz, who attract the funniest and most outrageous callers on sports talk radio, found out one of their regulars, Drew from San Diego, was on the FBI’s most-wanted list while almost nightly entertaining their audience.

Drew befriended Mason and Schwartz during a “Too Much Show” day at a Padre game last summer, and, on Sept. 27, he came into XTRA’s studio in San Diego to co-host a Monday night show. Then Drew vanished.

Mason and Schwartz later made a shtick out of trying to locate Drew, and within days, coincidentally, they got a letter from Michael Andrew Frizzell, saying he was Drew and was in the federal wing of the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle.

Mason and Schwartz thought the letter might have been one of Drew’s pranks until a listener, without knowing Drew’s full name, speculated that a fugitive pictured in the San Diego Reader, who was listed as armed and dangerous and wanted for numerous bank robberies across the country, might be Drew.

The caller was right.

“The whole thing just blew us away,” Schwartz said. “Drew came across as just a regular guy, a very bright guy. You just never would have known.”

TV-Radio Notes

Channel 2’s Sunday morning show, “L.A. Football Company,” is getting some incredible ratings, averaging a 4.5 for the season and a 5.4 over the last five weeks. It has also provided CBS’ “NFL Today” with an excellent lead-in. “NFL Today” is averaging a 5.6, compared to a 3.8 for NBC’s “NFL Live.” . . . Terry Bradshaw has taped an interview with John Elway for Sunday’s “NFL Today.” It is the first time the two talked since Bradshaw was critical of Elway before the 1990 Super Bowl. Elway agreed to the interview after Bradshaw named Elway his most valuable player at the halfway point of the season. . . . Add ratings: The Breeders’ Cup last Saturday got a 3.4 national rating, up slightly from last year.

The latest radio ratings book shows that KMPC’s morning show went from a .1 share to a 1 the first week Charlie Tuna was on. Program director Scott O’Neil said he is very pleased with the current lineup. He is particularly high on Brian Golden, Doug Krikorian and newcomer Mike Lamb. . . . Former midday host Tony Femino is still at the station--he will be on Sunday after the Ram game--but Fred Wallin is gone. . . . It has been quite a week for Barry Bonds. Tuesday, he was named MVP of the National League. Thursday, he appeared on the Fox network’s “In Living Color,” and tonight he will be on with David Letterman.

The Dodgers made it official this week, naming Rick Monday as a permanent member of the broadcast team. . . . Prime Ticket’s new Spanish language channel, La Cadena Deportiva, makes its debut Monday. The new network will carry 36 Laker games, 56 King games and 17 Mighty Duck games. . . . TBS will televise the two-day PGA Grand Slam at PGA West in La Quinta next Tuesday and Wednesday, delayed at 4:05 both days. . . . Bud Greenspan will be the featured guest on Ann Liguori’s popular “Sports Innerview” show on Prime Ticket Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.