Years Later, Raveling Has a Dream Too

Saturday is a significant day for Fox Sports Net commentator George Raveling, and not only because he’s working a Pacific 10 game, California at Oregon State, with his friend Barry Tompkins.

Raveling, of course, is excited about the game. Every college basketball game excites Raveling.

What makes Saturday particularly significant for Raveling is that it is Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday (although the holiday is being observed Monday).

Raveling and King will forever be linked because of a twist of fate in 1963.

Raveling had graduated two years earlier from Villanova, where he had been a basketball star and at the time was a graduate assistant coach. In late August of that year, he went to visit his best friend in Wilmington, Del. His friend’s father told the young men about a massive civil-rights demonstration that was taking place in Washington that weekend and suggested they go.

“We drove to Washington, found a motel room and were walking among the crowds about 10:45 at night,” Raveling recalled. “A man approached us, and I guess because of our size offered us jobs as security guards. He told us to report at 8:30 the next morning.

“We were so excited we showed up a half-hour early. We ended up among the 10 security people assigned to the podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial where a number of speeches were to take place.”

The event drew more than 200,000, and one of the speakers was King.

Each speaker was limited to five minutes. King went 8 1/2. It was his “I have a dream” speech, which USA Today recently named the No. 1 speech of the century.

When King turned to walk away, his speech in hand, Raveling, stationed behind him, asked if he could have the typewritten copy. King nonchalantly handed it to him.

“I don’t why I asked for it,” said Raveling, who was 23 at the time. “It didn’t seem to be a big deal.”

When Raveling got home, he put the speech inside the cover of another important possession--a signed book he had been given by President Harry Truman when he participated in a college all-star basketball game in Kansas City.

“For years, the book and the speech were in my basement somewhere,” Raveling said.

Raveling didn’t give it much thought until 1983, his first year as coach at Iowa. He had previously spent 10 seasons at Washington State, and, after a three-year stint at Iowa, he was at USC from 1986 until he retired from coaching in 1994.

A reporter from the newspaper in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during an interview, asked Raveling if he had been involved in the civil-rights movement of the ‘60s. Raveling said not really, but he told the reporter his Martin Luther King story.

“It was after that story came out and all the reaction to it that I realized that I had something special,” he said. “I didn’t know how naive I was.”

Raveling has had the speech in a safe-deposit box ever since.

So what is it worth?

“I’m not sure,” Raveling said, “but after I saw [last October] that the King family got $20 million from the Library of Congress in Washington for his personal papers, my guess is the speech would be worth about $1 million,” Raveling said.

Raveling said at one time the King family asked for the speech so it could be displayed at the King Center in Atlanta. “I said I would agree to that if they’d give me a signed agreement that the speech belonged to me. They wouldn’t agree to that.”

Raveling said the phrase “I have a dream,” which King used several times in the speech he delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, was not in the original speech.

“He ad-libbed that part,” Raveling said. “He had just used it in a speech at a church in Detroit, and it had been well received, as it was in Washington.”

SHORT WAVES

For true NFL fans, this weekend is the ultimate--the eight remaining teams playing four games in two days. Fox and CBS share the coverage. . . . On Sunday, Fox Sports Net and the Fox network will have Jerry Rice in studio on their back-to-back pregame shows, beginning with “NFL This Morning” at 7:30. He should have some interesting things to say about his future--and Steve Young’s. . . . Fox is inviting Ram fans in L.A. to watch the 9:30 a.m. Minnesota-St. Louis game Sunday at the Fox Sports Sky Box restaurant at Staples Center, which will open at 8:30. Channel 11’s Lisa Guerrero will be there conducting interviews and Arnie Spanier of KXTA (1150) will be there broadcasting live, beginning at 7 a.m. Former Ram players and cheerleaders will also be on hand.

Brent Jones, who proved to be a real nugget in his first year as a game commentator for CBS, worked the Rams’ first game of the season--a victory over Baltimore--with play-by-play partner Gus Johnson. Said Jones at the time: “The Rams have the diversity and speed offensively to score a lot of points and to make the playoffs.” A Florida columnist called it the biggest overreaction of that weekend. Guess who has had the last laugh. . . . Oops Dept.: Women’s basketball fans watching No. 1 Connecticut against No. 2 Tennessee on Saturday felt a moment of panic when, late in the game but before Connecticut had secured the victory, the picture went out and “Entertainment Tonight” popped up on the screen. But CBS soon corrected the problem.

The Golf Channel will celebrate its fifth anniversary Monday with a special review on “Golf Talk Live” at 5 p.m. . . . Vince Wladika, Fox’s senior vice president of media relations, has resigned and been replaced by Lou D’Ermilio. Wladika and his wife, Linda, recently adopted an 8-year-old Russian boy and Wladika said he wants to devote more time to raising him.

BAD TASTE AWARD

Leave it to sports talk radio to come up with the worst promo possible--the one with Dennis Rodman that has been playing on local cable. It shows Rodman and morning newcomers Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold of the “Bob and Tom Show” in a men’s room and includes crass dialogue hardly suitable for general audiences. KXTA program director Mike Thompson declined to say how much Rodman was paid for the spot.

IN CLOSING

A radio guy on Thursday named his list of the most intelligent people in sports as Jim Lampley, Bob Costas, Al Michaels, John Feinstein and Jim Rome. No problem with that, but Rome was the guy doing the ranking. Humility is not one of his strong suits.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Jan. 8-9.

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: Buffalo at Tennessee 7 12.5 34 Pro football: Detroit at Washington 7 12.1 31 Pro basketball: Lakers at Seattle 9 6.4 11 College basketball: Women, Florida at Penn St. 2 0.6 2 College basketball: Women, Connecticut at Tenn. 2 0.4 1 College basketball: Women, Purdue at Michigan 2 0.4 1

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Cable Network Rating Share Golf: Mercedes Championships at Maui ESPN 1.8 4 College basketball: Arizona at Stanford FSN 1.2 3 Boxing: Jorge Eliecer Julio vs. Johnny Tapia SHO 0.9 2 America’s Cup: Challenger semifinals, Day Six ESPN 0.5 1 Pro basketball: Indiana at Clippers FSN2 0.2 0

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SUNDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: Dallas at Minnesota 11 16.8 43 Pro football: Miami at Seattle 2 16.3 39 Figure skating: U.S. vs. The World Challenge 7 5.0 11 College basketball: Duke at Maryland 2 0.7 2

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Cable Network Rating Share Golf: Mercedes Championships at Maui ESPN 3.2 6 Bowling: Senior Masters at Reno ESPN 0.4 1 Boxing: Greg Wright vs. Darrell Spinks FSN 0.4 1 Hockey: Colorado at Chicago ESPN2 0.3 1

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Note: Each rating point represents 51,350 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.