Tuesday, August 06, 2002
Chick Hearn 'meant everything to all of us'
By Roscoe Nance
USA TODAY
Chick Hearn was more than a team broadcaster during his 42-year career as the voice of the Los Angeles Lakers. Hearn, who died Monday night at 85 from injuries suffered in a Friday fall at his home, also was an innovator, teacher and an icon.
“He's been unbelievable,” said Utah announcer Hot Rod Hundley, who played for the Lakers during their first three years in L.A. and worked with Hearn for two years.
Hearn was the Lakers' only play-by-play announcer since their move from Minneapolis for the 1960-61 season. In December he had heart-valve replacement surgery, ending his streak of broadcasting 3,338 consecutive Lakers games. That run had begun Nov. 20, 1965, when bad weather kept him from making a flight.
“Chick meant everything to all of us,” said ESPN NBA analyst Bill Walton, who grew up in San Diego and began listening to Hearn call Lakers games on radio at 10. “He taught me how to play basketball, think about basketball and how to love the game. I grew up in a non-athletic household. We had no TV. I had books, newspapers and a handheld transistor radio. Every night it was Chick, the world and me.
“When the game was finally "put in the refrigerator,' I knew I could close my eyes and go to sleep.”
Hearn, best known for his work with the Lakers, broadcast a variety of sports, including NCAA football, NFL games, University of Nevada-Las Vegas basketball and Southern California football. He also hosted “Bowling for Dollars” and a nightly radio sports show that won two Emmys. He called the first Ali-Frazier heavyweight fight and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
“The best schooling anyone could have had was working with Chick,” said Hundley, who worked more than 200 Lakers games as an analyst with Hearn in the mid-'60s. “He was just the greatest teacher. I would just listen with the headset on and say, "If I ever get to be a play-by-play announcer, this is the way it should be done.' ”
Hearn has been enshrined in the American Sportscasters and Naismith Basketball Halls of Fame.
“He, to me, was part a particular era,” New York Knicks broadcaster Marv Albert said. “It was Marty Glickman, Johnny Most and Chick Hearn. Guys who had a definitive style and set it all for today's basketball announcers.
“We may never see that style again. Goes back to radio. Fans really related to guy doing play-by-play. He had a great way of capturing the picture. He had great enthusiasm and excitement, and he had opinion, too, which is great.”
Said Portland Trail Blazers announcer Steve Jones: “He was one of the great play-by-play guys in any sport. There will be plenty of copycats. That speaks volumes of what his impact was on the game and L.A. He was unique. He could do something no one else could do when he was in his heyday, which seemed to last forever.”
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Chick Hearn 'meant everything to all of us'
