Gamecock Football
When I made the transition from WIS TV to WIS Radio, one of the skills I brought with me was the ability to operate the audio console for live sports, having done so at both WCOS and WIS TV. I was already the de facto chief engineer of the Gamecock Radio Network because WIS Radio was the flagship station and contract holder with the university to assemble and run the network. This was accomplished by renting a special broadcast circuit from Southern Bell to bring the audio from the press box at Williams-Brice Stadium to the WIS Studios on 1 Radio Lane. We also rented similar long-distance lines to carry the signal with the network commercials mixed in from the WIS Studios to other stations around the state. Other stations that were close enough to pick up WIS over the air used our on-air signal as their source for the game.
In 1977, I was told that I would be the on-site engineer/producer for the football season. I was not compensated for this extra duty that would tie up every Saturday, and some Fridays for away games. When I complained to management about this, they reminded me that there was an extra game that year after the Clemson game. We would play the University of Hawaii Thanksgiving Weekend on Nov 26th and that I would be travelling with the team that would leave the Sunday before and would have the entire week free in Honolulu with the exception of working the game, recording the pre-game show on Friday with Bob Fulton and Coach Jim Carlen which I would play back at the beginning of the broadcast. To sweeten the pot, they said that my wife, Susan, could travel with me on the team plane and that all I would have to pay for was her room and board.
So, the broadcast team was Bob Fulton doing the play-by-play and Tommy Suggs, who was the Gamecock starting quarterback from 1968 to 1970; He led the Gamecocks to the 1969 ACC Championship and a berth in the Peach Bowl. I rounded out the team as producer/engineer. The Gamecocks were a member of the ACC until 1971. Bob and I immediately re-bonded from our days together at WCOS, and Tommy was easy to get to know and work with. We had a solid broadcast team. The football team had 5 wins and 7 losses that year, including losing to the rival Clemson, 31 to 27, and losing the extra game to Hawaii, 24 to 7.
Typically, I would arrive at the stadium about 3 hours before game time and set up the remote audio board, headphones with microphones attached on booms, cassette tape recorder with the pre-game show. I would also go down to the Carolina locker room and hook up another audio board and headphones there to provide a connection between us and Coach Carlen for the post-game show that followed the game by 15 minutes.
With the equipment set up and checked along with all the necessary electrical circuits, I typically had an hour to check out the buffet in the press box. The first six games of the season were home games, of which we won four. Five of the last six games were away at Old Miss, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Wake Forest and Hawaii. We lost all those games except Wake Forest. And we lost the Clemson Game at home as well. Not a stellar year. But I got to sample the press box buffets at all the away games, and eventually, over the next two years, all the other press box buffets are in the remaining ACC stadiums. I may be biased, but I thought SC had the best press house buffet in the ACC. An opinion that was generally shared by sports announcers and writers across the ACC.
The other benefit to this gig was that I flew on the team plane to all of these locations. With one exception, the return trip to Columbia after the gut-wrenching 7 to 3 loss to NC State. One of the coach’s wives injured herself at the game, so she rode back in my seat while the equipment and I rode back on the bus with the other coach’s wives.
The Hawaii trip was wonderful. We stayed in two hotels on Waikiki beach. Alan Sharpe, an old friend and film cameraman (His picture is also included on the 1977 Carolina Football Program above), who shot game footage for the team, and his wife rented a car, and we drove around Oahu. We also enjoyed a Luau on Thanksgiving Day, during which a grass-skirted Wahine convinced me to embarrass myself in front of everyone, trying to dance the Hula on stage. Hint: male hula dancers don’t wiggle their hips.
One of the most moving experiences of that trip was visiting the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. That was a nice bookend to my standing on the dunes overlooking Omaha beach 13 and a half years earlier on June 6, 1964.
By the way, I did not get compensated for the 1978 season either and to make matters worse, I had to work the WIS Radio broadcast of the Bronze Derby game on Thanksgiving between Presbyterian and Newberry Colleges because the USC student we had hired to do that game and some high school games that year needed to go home for Thanksgiving. So, our turkey dinner with friends had to wait until I drove back from Clinton, SC, where the game was played. I’m not complaining; the experiences far outweigh the extra hours of those two years.
The August before the 1979 season, I accepted a position at South Carolina Educational Television. So WIS contracted with me to do the games that year. Ka-ching!!!
I was born in a great Radio Town; Jacksonville Florida. So it was only natural that I joined WUSC (AM at the time) in my first semester 1963. I went on to a career in commercial radio and television in Columbia, WCOS AM & FM, WIS-TV, WIS Radio, SCETV and PBS. I'm retired now, giving back since 2010 to the station that started my career, WUSC-FM. If you did the math you will know that I celebrated the 60th anniversary of my first radio show ever in November 2023.