Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992 TAG: 9201250406
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS LENGTH: Long
BOWL'S SUPER THIRD TEAM
When Super Bowl XXVI is considered, one of the first notions is that the NFL's two best teams will play Sunday night in the Superdome.That's a bit shortsighted. Make it the three best teams, because Pat Summerall and John Madden will be calling their fifth Super Bowl as a CBS telecast team.
Summerall's understated play-by-play meshes with Madden's flamboyance and the pictures from director Sandy Grossman to bring viewers NFL coverage that has a compelling edge, no matter what the score.
For years, Summerall and Madden have been told that they're an unlikely pairing. They've heard it again this week as they prepared for Sunday's game (at 6 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7), which is preceded by a record 2 1/2-hour pregame show.
"People tell me they think we're total opposites, but I don't know how they reach that conclusion," said Summerall, who will be working his 20th Super Bowl on TV or CBS Radio. "Really, in a lot of ways, we're alike.
"Our love of the event, our love of the sport, our love of the work ethic. We have an expression, when we're preparing for a game, that we share about a bucket.
"We ask each other if we feel comfortable with what we know. We'll stay in the room [doing preparation] until the bucket's full."
Why shouldn't Summerall, 61, and Madden, 55, see the same game similarly? An old tackle and an old end - "Make that former end, not old," Summerall said, laughing - are where they are today because of their NFL experiences.
Summerall started with CBS in 1964 after winning an audition among four New York Giants' players. Madden moved upstairs after coaching the Oakland Raiders to a 103-32-7 record and seven AFC West titles in 10 years, including a Super Bowl XI victory over Minnesota.
Madden has won seven consecutive Sports Emmys for his analyst work. He easily recalls when he wasn't such a natural behind the mike, however.
"When I first started [13 years ago], no one was taking my temperature all of the time," he said. "Nobody knew who I was then, so when I screwed up, nobody paid attention.
"The guy in the truck would talk into my ear and I'd answer him on the air . . . `Yeah, whad'ya want?' "
Madden's first CBS game was in the Superdome, and the producer wanted him to do a halftime interview with former New Orleans receiver Danny Abramowicz.
"I suddenly thought, `I've never asked a question in my life,' " Madden said. "I didn't know how to ask a question. I was always on the other side of the question, as a coach."
Madden stumbled through a long statement, and Abramowicz, sensing the ex-coach's disaster in the making, provided a segment-ending answer.
"It was bad," Madden said. "But no one watched."
Summerall, 61, remembers his first game with Madden. The play-by-play man was surprised by more than Madden's dangerous hand-waving in the booth.
"Tom Brokshier [Summerall's longtime CBS partner before Madden] and I did a game in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day," Summerall said, thinking back to 1979. "Tom's daughter was a debutante, and she was coming out that weekend, and he didn't want to work that next Sunday.
"I told them I'd work the Tampa Bay game, because it was only a two-hour drive from my home [in Lake City, Fla.]. I get there and John's in a light tan suit, in the days before we wore our blue jackets.
"He's just drenched in sweat. We're working from a temporary booth way up at Tampa Stadium. I don't know anything about John's fear of flying or fear of heights at this time, and I'm watching him rehearse and sweat and I thought, holy hell, he's not going to make it in this business."
Summerall was mistaken. Madden captured NFL viewers not only with his knowledge, but with the simplicity with which he dissects a game. His pairing with Summerall is magic because of Summerall's quick-in, quick-out game call, leaving Madden time to telestrate items from the sublime to the ridiculous.
"In The New York Times earlier this season, someone - and this person must not have much to do - supposedly watched an Eagles-Giants game we did and did a breakdown on the talk," Summerall said. "The guy said I talked 46 percent of the game and John the other 54 percent."
That statistic seemed to surprise Summerall, whose economy in play-by-play verbiage is founded in an analyst's knowledge of the sport. Whatever the percentage, it's the 100 percent that makes this duo dynamic on big games.
"Our enthusiasm, our love for the game and maybe our obligation to each other, as professionals, are similar, I think," Summerall said. "We like the product. We like what we do. And if we are on top, like people say, we like that.
"How many people in life get to that position? There aren't many rooms in the inn at the top of the hill . . . I think we like getting paid, too."
Summerall and Madden are more than million-dollar men for CBS. Still, one gets the impression that they'd show up at the Metrodome on Sunday for a lot less.
"They told us, you work as long as you'd like," Summerall said. "If the load gets too big, you tell us."
Even in Madden's renowned bus, that seems a ways down the road.
"When it's not fun, I'm not going to do it anymore," said Madden, reminding himself of the end of his coaching career, too.
"Right now, there's no place I'd rather be than here, doing this."