![]() ![]() I think of the wonderful Chick Hearn in his final few years when he and his toupee looked propped up. He didn’t wait for anyone to blow the whistle. They were still great but not as great as they were. He took heed to the recordings of his work. If baseball had its Sandy Koufax and the NFL had Jim Brown, both of whom retired at 30, basketball on radio had Kentucky’s beloved and talented Cawood Ledford. Oldest brother Marv, 78, a basketball broadcast icon, shows no signs of wanting to shed the mic. Steve Albert retired in his mid-sixties as did his brother Al before him. My hat’s off to Rick Peckham, 64, Voice of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who’ll retire at the end of the NHL season when he’s 65. A few scale back but don’t give up the booth entirely. They’d feel like a carpenter without tools. ![]() Some justify their mistakes, not many make plans for retirement. Their identity is their work. Some move on when it’s time, others can’t. Others just talk less to elude unnavigable pitfalls. There are those who can still spin spontaneous yarns. There are voices who maintain their word retention and others who don’t. A few submit to the imperative of reality and the handwriting on the wall. There are those who recognize the power of social media. They proceed by maintaining a taut smile or inoculating themselves by harshly dismissing their critics. Both Al’s parents lived to over 90.Īnnouncers sometimes get away with overstaying their welcome, even when their voices quiver or their hands move unsteadily when holding a stick mic. It’s a discipline that doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. Al says proper rest is required to facilitate imperturbable focus while on-air. McCoy travels the NBA 82-game circuit calling games on radio from the nosebleeds, doing so with preternatural eyes. Hubie is still as self-assured on ESPN as he was on Turner thirty years ago. Some seniors haven’t lost an iota of their vocal speed, some have. Al McCoy and Hubie Brown, both 86, are blessed. Pilots can fly commercial aircraft up to a fixed age. Think of law firms where partners have required retirement ages. Is sports broadcasting a meritocracy or a gerontocracy? There are many in the broadcast booth much older than 70, an age at which the government mandates seniors to draw down their retirement accounts. Locally, some voices have built formidable community capital, the kind they conveniently interpret for lifelong entitlement. Some announcers think they’ll go on forever, getting nodding but unbinding assurances from the powers that be. We, people of all walks of life, believe what we want to believe. Younger broadcasters talk in hushed tones about their elder and esteemed colleagues, “We want him to leave at the top of their games,” not thinking ahead to when they themselves will face similar predicaments. Others have self-distorted views of themselves after years of being awash with glamorous exposure. Some think that seniority comes with a lifetime license, one of a tenured professor or a Supreme Court justice. Some ignore the constellation of symptoms swelling shortcomings generated irrepressibly by age. They refuse to recognize that the clock winds down inexorably, that shelf lives are limited and that their broadcast styles become obsolete. Some broadcasters think they’re beyond reproach. ![]()
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