(ATR) U.S. sportscaster Jim McKay is being remembered for his contribution to the Olympics and as a pioneer of TV broadcasting in the U.S.
McKay died of natural causes at his home in Monkton, Maryland, near Baltimore, on June 7.
Memorial tributes are scheduled June 9 at 10:30, followed by a funeral Mass at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5300 N. Charles Street in Baltimore. The burial will be private.
Instead of flowers, contributions may be sent to The James K. McManus "39" Award, Loyola Blakefield, 500 Chestnut Avenue, Towson, MD 21204. The 39 Award was founded by McKay to provide a scholarship for an outstanding journalism or literary arts student at his high school.
As an Olympics presenter, McKay covered teenaged U.S. swimmer Donna De Varona’s gold medal performance in Tokyo in 1964. It was his first Olympics. Later, De Varona joined the ABC-TV Olympics team in McKay’s last Games for the network.
De Varona tells Around the Rings she remembers McKay’s “quiet dedication, his ability to tell the human interest story thus drawing the viewer to sport through an up close and personal perspective.
“He was a story teller who never over-shadowed an event and helped -- more than anyone -- popularize the Olympics,” said De Varona.
McKay is recognized as a consummate broadcaster across a career that included the first era of TV in the U.S. His reporting of the Munich hostage-taking at the 1972 Olympics is regarded as his defining moment, as well as a milestone for broadcasting.
“What happened on September 5th changed an awful lot of people, including me, in the most basic way we'd never imagined or dreamed. That was the first thing we saw live,” McKay told ABC Sports in 2002 interview.
“That day was the end of innocence in sports, and it also might have been the beginning of tight security. It was also the end of innocence for all of us. We thought nothing compared to that could ever, ever happen and it was the climax of what started in Munich.”
In all, McKay covered 11 Olympics for ABC, ending in 1988. In 2002 he joined NBC’s coverage of the Salt Lake City Olympics for his 12th Games.
NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol began his career as a 19-year old researcher for ABC at the 1968 Olympics and credits McKay as an inspiration “for all of us who had the privilege to grow up around him as boys, he helped shape us into men.”
“He was truly the most respected and admired sportscaster of his generation and defined how the stories of sports can and should be covered,” said Ebersol in a statement.
McKay received the Olympic Order from the IOC at the Salt Lake City Games. His work in Munich was recognized with an Emmy, the first awarded to a sportscaster.
Besides the Olympics, McKay was known for his hosting of ABC’s Wide World of Sports program that took him to more than 40 countries across 25 years.
Horse racing was one of his loves. He covered 25 Kentucky Derby races and was a horse owner and breeder.
Among his firsts: his was the first voice heard over television in Baltimore when broadcasts began in 1947. He was the first U.S. sports reporter to visit the People’s Republic of China. He went to Cuba for an interview with Fidel Castro.
McKay was born in Philadelphia, his family moving to Baltimore as a teenager. Born James McManus, he switched to the on-air persona of Jim McKay as his broadcasting career took off in the 1950s.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret, a daughter, Mary, and son Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports.
"Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn't come up to me and say how much they admired my father," McManus is quoted in the Baltimore Sun.
Here is a sample of some of the video clips available over the internet of McKay in action:
From ESPN program Outside the Lines
From You Tube –
A 1991 interview with Bob Costas
Jim McKay interviews Scott Hamilton
ABC Wide World of Sports
Written by Ed Hula in Athens
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