T he Miracle on Ice. The earthquake World Series. Kardashians and O.J. Betting at the race track with Pete Rose and golfing with George W. Bush, Donald Trump and the Manning brothers.
These are just a few of the adventures recounted by Al Michaels in his new autobiography, “You Can’t Make This Up,” co-authored by Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated. Michaels, the 70-year-old play-by-play ace of “Sunday Night Football” on NBC, has seen and done just about everything in his distinguished career — and he seems happy to relive those memories in a book that is conversational in the same comfortable voice he brings to the booth.
Michaels was born in Brooklyn. He spent his early years going to see the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field (attending more than 50 of the 77 home games during a single season) and listening to a young Vin Scully call their games on the radio. He played Little League and other sports but dreamed not of playing in the big leagues, but calling the games.
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Photo by: AP IMAGES
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Michaels recently discussed his book and other career highlights with SportsBusiness Journal correspondent Erik Spanberg. Following are excerpts from that conversation.
■ A recurrent theme in this book is some advice Curt Gowdy gave you as a young man to not become jaded. How hard is that for someone who has seen and done so much at this point?
MICHAELS: It’s not hard because I’ve always loved sports and still do and my kids do and my grandkids do. There’s a generational thing here. My father [loved sports], obviously. So I guess it runs in our family DNA. I’m not sure I would have gotten jaded even if Curt had not said that, but I thought it was a very interesting thing that he said. And now that I do see how some people can get a little tired of it, I know exactly what he was talking about.
■ Is it still fun for you that so many people think of “Do you believe in miracles?” first when they think of you?
MICHAELS: I love it because when people talk about it, they still glow. What’s a lot of fun for me these days is when I see a father and a son and the father can remember watching [the U.S. defeat Russia for a chance to play for the gold medal at Lake Placid in 1980, when Michaels made his famous call] and the son clearly was not alive at that point, but the father has passed the story down to the son, the son has probably seen the movie “Miracle,” he’s read about it, and it’s one of these things that’s great because people talk about they’ll always remember where they were when it happened. And that happens with a few events in our lives.
■ You mention that you and John Madden [working together on “Monday Night Football”] clicked instantly. How rare is that?
MICHAELS: With John and with me at that particular point, we’d both been in the business a long time, we had heard each other many, many times. We both came in with the same philosophy and attitude of how to do this. So that was easy. I’ve been very fortunate in that through the years I’ve had a lot of guys who I was paired with and it just clicked off the bat. I mean, Ken Dryden, Ken had never even done broadcasting until Lake Placid and we had a couple of practice games we did and away we went. Tim McCarver was great from the get-go, Jim Palmer, Dan Dierdorf, so I’ve been lucky. Dan Fouts would be another guy. You walk in and you kind of know it’s going to work.
■ How much longer would you like to do this?
MICHAELS: As long as I feel pretty good, and I do — health is out of your hands for anybody — so as long as I can do it, as long as I’m excited about it, I’m going to do it. I just don’t think about walking away. Marv Levy, when he was coaching the Buffalo Bills a number of years ago, had a great line: “When you’re thinking of retirement, you’re already retired.” That’s why I don’t think about it.
■ What do you think of the state of the sports media business right now?
MICHAELS: It runs the gamut. Right now, I see some of the best writing and best reporting I’ve ever seen, both print and electronic, and I see some of the worst on both levels. It depends on who you’re listening to or reading.
■ With the NFL, all of the talk that has gone on with the off-field issues, concussions, player health, there are some who say football is due to decline. You see this up close every week. What do you think the long-term prognosis is for the NFL?
MICHAELS: I think one of the serious issues is going to be the health aspect and the concussion aspect. If you start to have parents and grandparents telling their children that they don’t want them to play football, that could be a serious problem down the line because you would have fewer and fewer kids getting into the game. That is a very serious situation. The NFL is trying to do the best it can right now. Technology’s getting better, safety, we hope, is getting a little bit better, the equipment’s getting better, they’ve put in rules to try to limit as best they can injuries, handing out suspensions and fines for illegal contact and all of the rest. So it’s a very important thing.
■ What is on your bucket list in terms of an event, a league, a team, a player that you’d like to cover?
MICHAELS: Zero (laughs). I’ve done everything I’ve ever wanted to do and more. Somebody said to me recently, “What about the World Cup in soccer?” I said, “Yeah, that would be great, except for the fact that I’ve never been to a soccer game.” I don’t think I’m the guy you’d want in the booth.
■ Hockey is your favorite sport. Has it always been?
MICHAELS: The great thing about it is that it’s the best sport in person. I’ve taken so many people to their first hockey games and they’ll come away going, “Man, where have I been? This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.” So in the arena, it’s phenomenal. I still love it and as a fan it’s the one thing I do go to that I’m not broadcasting.
