The Mourning Anchor

When Gumbel set out for Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1966, he was still not very sure of himself. After a small success in his social life during his freshman year at Bates, he wrote home: "For the first time since I've been here, I don't feel like a complete failure to myself or to you."

Gumbel may have even married to please his father. June Baranco, a student at LSU who would later become a Delta stewardess, came through Chicago to visit a friend for a few days in 1968. On one of those days, Gumbel's dad ended up taking June on a tour of Chicago. Richard liked her. In fact, Bryant told McCall's, "...at the very beginning he thought more of her than I did. But that fact was very important to me." They were married in 1973.

His first job after graduating from Bates, where he majored in Russian history and had a 2.6 average, was as a salesman for an industrial paper manufacturer in Manhattan. Those were lonely times. He didn't like the job, and he wasn't much good at it, so he quit without telling his dad.

The last Christmas Eve his father was alive, in 1971, Bryant looked around his New York apartment and took stock: He had a mattress, an eight-inch black-and-white TV and a light bulb. Total. He went out, bought a Blimpie sandwich and called his parents, collect. Deck the Halls.

He finally took a job writing for a small monthly, Black Sports, and that was what he was doing on April 10, 1972, when a friend of the family called to tell Bryant his father had collapsed in his courtroom and died of a heart attack. Richard never saw Bryant on TV.

How long did it take him to get over that death? "You're assuming I am," says Gumbel.

And the truth is, he's not. As Greg has said, "Without sounding as if I don't miss [my father], I think it's fair to say Bryant misses him more. He suffers more. He gravitated tremendously to Dad. It's certainly nothing we've ever talked about, but I would say Bryant was probably my father's favorite."

This summer Bryant recalled the last time he saw his father. He was saying goodbye, and he had wanted to kiss him, but thought, "Nah, you're a man, now," and shook his dad's hand instead.

Ironically, a week after Richard's funeral, Bryant's career began to bloom. An acquaintance at KNBC in Los Angeles asked him to try out for the weekend sports anchor job. Gumbel flew in and was so good that the producer assumed Gumbel had memorized the audition script. Within a year, he was doing the weekday sports.

The world discovered Zero-Stumble Gumbel during the 1974 Oakland-Los Angeles World Series. He was doing a wrap-up for his own affiliate, using NBC cameras, and the network people watching were so impressed that they called him in. "Here comes this chubby guy with hair down to his shoulders," remembers the associate producer that day, Michael Weisman, now executive producer of NBC Sports. "He stands up and rolls it through in one take. O.K., guys, see ya later. We were dumbfounded. We had experienced network guys who would've taken two hours to do what he did in two minutes." In the truck, NBC Sports VP Chet Simmons was yelping, "Will someone please tell me: Who in the hell is that kid?"