SEPTEMBER '74
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It was Saturday, September 14, 1974. I, Tom Thomas, had relocated from Ohio seven months before. Now I was the program director of cable channel TV-3 in Washington, Pennsylvania.
College football seasons were somewhat shorter in those days, and many teams didn't play their first games until September 14. Our local college, Washington & Jefferson, hosted Carnegie Mellon University.
Meanwhile, 167 miles to the northeast, Penn State was opening its season by hosting Stanford. ABC's telecast crew for the latter game included sophomore Tom Huet, a former member of the Track & Field team. Tom's home was (and still is) in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, where he was a neighbor of Terry O'Neil.
Tom went on to become a director of televised sports. Fifty years after 1974, he told the origin story on Facebook, as follows:
I'd just made a decision (actually my college coach, Harry Groves, helped) to hang up my T&F spikes at Penn State and get along with my life's work. (Those Olympic athletes on my team were just a little faster than me.)
The mother of Terry O'Neil (who would become Executive Producer at all three Networks) asked my Dad if I still wanted to get into TV work. I did!
Terry told me to call Jeff Ruhe at ABC and he would hire me as a runner on the above mentioned game. I was thrilled! It was the ABC "A" team in Happy Valley and I would have a press pass! Roone Arledge, Keith Jackson, Bud Wilkinson, Bill Fleming, Chuck Howard, Andy Sidaris, Don Bernstein and so many other names that were legendary to me would be working! I showed up for work on Thursday and was ready to do anything that was requested.
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Back then the graphics you see on the screen were matted onto the TV picture via chroma key while a camera shot an art card. Each graphic was prepared by hand from press type (right). |
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It took several Production Assistants to make this all happen in a tent under the stadium. On Friday, our Production Coordinator asked me if I knew anywhere in town that we could buy some more press type since we had run out. I told him there is a place called "Uncle Eli's" that had everything we needed. He gave me money and said get moving! I bought everything they had. Upon return all were grateful, and they promoted me on the spot to a graphics PA.
I got to work with folks like Mike Klatt, Dick Ellis, Bob Lanning, the Purnell triplets, Lance Barrow, Curt Gowdy Jr., Sean McManus and so on. Many of the superstars of our business started with press type, a razor pen and a black Sharpie.
The show went fine, and afterward Chuck Howard threw me the keys to the graphics van and said meet us in Philadelphia for Monday Night Football. I respectfully declined since I was still in school. Chuck understood but told me he wanted me on every show that I could get to and was available.
This started a run of being Jim Lampley and Don Tollofson's Sideline Producer at PSU and Pitt games, several assignments on Monday Night Football (one game earned me a one-on-one conversation and cigar from Art Rooney, Senior), and some of the top CFB games in the country.
When I graduated, I already had a direction to follow — all because of the kindness of my Natrona Heights neighbor Terry O'Neil and his mother Louise! I will always be grateful. And, as they say, the rest is history!
