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"The Thrill Of Victory, And The Agony Of Defeat!…"

Long time sports broadcaster, Jim McCay, has passed away. He was host of “Wide World of Sports”, and for those of you too young to have seen the show, the sports show featured pretty much anything that showed human endurance, anything that was a competition; anything that could possibly be called a sport. want an example? How about woodchipping.

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If you have ever watched or played any “Xtreme” sports, you might want to thank “WWoS” and Jim McCay for creating and fostering the idea that the sports world consisted of more than just NFL football or baseball. Without “WWoS”, we may never had heard of a guy calling himself “Evel Knievel“. Here is another good writ-up about the show.

McCay was also the voice of the Olympics, having been the announcer in 12 of them. In fact, when ABC lost the Olympics to NBC, I started to lose interest in the Olympics partly because I knew they just wouldn’t be the same without the voice of Jim McCay. They weren’t. The sports world is a little less interesting without the likes of Jim McCay.

PS. The one modern broadcaster who could bring some of the same quality and spirit back to the Olympics, in my opinion, is Dan Patrick. One of the great qualities exemplified by McCay was that, although he was always a professional, he always seemed to be having just a little bit of fun just under the surface. Dan Patrick also has that quality. Here’s hoping some exec at NBC reads my blog before the Chinese Olympics start.