One of a kind

No one can match what Hearn gave to basketball

Chick Hearn was the voice of the Lakers for more than 40 years. The “Golden Throat” called a record 3,338 consecutive Lakers games, starting in 1965, before missing one because he had to have an operation in December 2001 for a blocked aortic valve.

Hearn is credited with adding many phrases to the basketball lexicon, such as "air ball" and "slam dunk." He also broadcast NCAA and NFL football, UNLV basketball, PGA golf, the first Ali-Frazier fight, the Rose Bowl and covered the 1992 U.S. Olympic Basketball “Dream” Team in Barcelona.

CNNSI.com talked with Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor about Chick Hearn and what he meant to the game of basketball.

CNNSI.com: Chick Hearn’s 3,338 consecutive games made him one of a kind. Is it fair to say that we won’t see anyone like him again?

Taylor: He’s a vanishing breed in not only his consecutive-games streak (he’s kind of the Cal Ripken of NBA announcers) but also in that he did it all with one team. He was content to be a local announcer for the Lakers. He didn’t have the big dream of being on the national game of the week or on network TV the way most announcers do now.

He may not be remembered nationwide, like Marv Albert might be at the end of his career, but he certainly will be more beloved by the people who did hear him. He became something of a Southern California icon.

CNNSI.com: Hearn wasn’t a homer, though. He tended to call it like he saw it, right?

Taylor: That’s why people didn’t just love him, they respected him. He wasn’t like Harry Caray in baseball, who would say only positive things about his team. Chick was very much a fan; he wanted the Lakers to win. But like any Laker fan, when they screwed up, it made him mad and he would tell people about it.

In one game, he said something like, “Ninety-nine percent of the time, Robert Horry is a great defensive player. Tonight we’re seeing that other one percent.”

He wasn’t afraid to say that Shaq was being lazy about getting back on defense. Listening to him was like listening to a knowledgeable fan.

CNNSI.com: How else was Chick Hearn different from other announcers?

Taylor: He didn’t need an analyst, because he was a play-by-play guy and a color guy all rolled into one. He could tell you what was happening and what he thought of it at the same time in a very smooth way. I think he was very underrated in that regard.

CNNSI.com: Wasn’t he also doing the radio broadcast at the same time as the TV broadcast?

Taylor: Yes, he was. And that’s a tricky thing. He could paint a picture to the radio audience without making it obvious to the television audience that that’s what he was doing. That was also underrated. He had so many “Chick-isms” that made people chuckle -- people may have missed what a skilled craftsman he was as a broadcaster.

CNNSI.com: In terms of the “Chick-isms,” the phrases he’s given us, has any other broadcaster had the impact on the game of basketball that Chick had?

Taylor: I don’t think anybody can match Chick for what he added to the basketball lingo, things like “finger roll,” “slam dunk” and “air ball.” They sound almost like clichés now, but he was the first one to use them; he coined all those terms. I cannot think of anyone who could match him in that regard. Marv Albert may be the guy who comes closest, because he has his own distinctive style and has coined his own phrases. But no one else has come up with terms that have become so universally used.

CNNSI.com: Hearn started with the Lakers in 1960, and the game has changed quite a bit since then. Did his style evolve with the game?

Taylor: He evolved with the game to a certain degree. The fact that he came up with the term “slam dunk” proves that. People weren’t dunking in 1960. He certainly wasn’t one of those announcers who believed that anything that happened 20 years ago was automatically better. He would tell you that some of the players today were better athletes than the old Celtics and Lakers.

But in the past 10 years or so, it became harder for him to keep up. The game didn’t pass him by, but the pace of the game picked up. He started making some mistakes; he’d say Jeff Malone instead of Karl Malone, referring to players who had already retired and things like that. But he’d built up such a bank of goodwill that by that time, it almost became part of his charm. He’d make a mistake you wouldn’t normally want an announcer to make, but it endeared him to people in a way.

CNNSI.com: Baseball recently lost broadcasting great Jack Buck. How do you think Chick compares to greats in other sports?

Taylor: He’s right up there. Anyone who heard him only in the past 10 years probably wouldn’t say that, but anyone who heard him before that would say that he certainly ranks up there among the greats in any sport, because of the things he added to the language, the way he would describe a game.

He was a lot like Vin Scully, in that he could make you feel as though you were at a game. Scully was kind of a poet and Chick had a rough edge to his language. He didn’t weave beautiful phrases, but he made you feel as if you were right down there at courtside. He could take you there as well as any broadcaster I’ve heard in any sport, so he definitely deserves to be right there with the great ones. Generations of fans will remember games the way Chick called them on the radio.

CNNSI.com: Do you have a favorite Chick memory?

Taylor: A few years ago, when Kobe Bryant was in maybe his second year and Del Harris was the Lakers’ head coach, Chick came down to the court and wanted to talk to a few players before the game. He called to Kobe at exactly the same time that Harris did, and you could see that Kobe had a decision to make about who he was going to respond to.

Kobe started toward Chick, and Chick gave him a quick, little shake of the head that said, "No, no. Go to Del.” And that’s what Kobe did. That really told me the kind of respect he got, that players kind of ranked him above their coach.

 

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