Jim McKay

The veteran sportscaster who made every story personal

Jim McKay

1921–2008

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Before Jim McKay, sports on TV consisted mostly of baseball, football, and the occasional horse race. McKay, who has died at 86, changed that. For almost 40 years on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, he brought a staggering array of athletics into America’s living rooms every week, imbuing the competitions with the personal drama of the players. He also conveyed a fan’s enthusiasm. “If I said I was an objective reporter,” he said, “I’d be lying through my teeth.”

Born James Kenneth McManus, McKay started his career as a print journalist, said the Baltimore Sun. After only a year, he was recruited for Baltimore’s first TV station, largely because he’d been president of Loyola College’s drama society. On Oct. 27, 1947, McKay “sat on an orange crate in a control room” and became “host of the first Baltimore telecast, two horse races at Pimlico.” After three years, he joined CBS in New York. “He spent 11 years with the network, at one point working sports shows from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., sleeping five hours, then returning.” In 1961, following “what he described as ‘a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown,’” he got a call from Roone Arledge at ABC, who was putting together a groundbreaking new sports show.

In an era prior to satellites and ESPN, Wide World of Sports was uniquely broad-ranging and ambitious, said the Los Angeles Times. “To pull it off, Arledge needed the perfect host. Enter McKay.” Invoking the show’s signature line—“The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”—he trotted the globe for stories, offering up not only such standards as the Masters and the Indy 500 but the likes of “log rolling, barrel racing, cliff diving, and the highflying exploits of motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel.” McKay emphasized the people behind the action, always seeking to connect with his audience. “I have tried to make my job not just the description of what’s happening at the moment,” he said, “but a search for excellence and an exploration of the human character.”

“McKay’s most memorable moment occurred when mankind was at its worst,” said the Chicago Tribune. When the Palestinian terrorist group Black September killed two Israeli athletes and kidnapped nine others at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Arledge bypassed “the outspoken and controversial Howard Cosell” and tapped McKay to anchor ABC’s coverage. With the world watching during that “long, grim day, McKay’s understated approach captured the tense mood” as he sorted out conflicting rumors and reports. Finally, when word arrived that the hostages had been killed, “he said tersely, ‘They’re all gone.’ Nothing more needed to be said.” McKay’s work at Munich won him the first-ever Emmy for a sportscaster—one of 13 he earned in his career.

McKay traveled more than 5 million miles and accumulated a storehouse of adventures and anecdotes, said The New York Times. When footage of the 1960 Rome Olympics arrived at CBS’s New York studios frozen from its overseas flight, he personally warmed the tape by holding it against his body. “A promoter once demanded $100,000 for the rights to cliff diving in Acapulco, but McKay moved in and offered the divers $10 each. They accepted.” McKay is survived by his wife and two children, including Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports.