You Can't Keep Him Down On The Farm

Typically, McKay at first didn't want the job. Glory? He had been to Munich, so he had nothing left to prove. He had done U.S. Open golf, the British Open and the PGA, the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500. Why pile on more? Fame? All he wanted was to go home to his family in Westport.

For someone who has been seen in our living rooms for so many years—far more than Musburger, or Garagiola, or Cosell, who came to TV seven years after McKay—it's remarkable how remote a person McKay is. Sure, he gives us a sense of his virtues—good, honest, decent Jim McKay—but he invites no intimacy, provides no inkling of his foibles or details of his private life.

For example, few viewers know that his real name isn't Jim McKay but Jim McManus. To his friends and family he's Jimmy McManus, as Irish as County Armagh, where his paternal grandparents were raised. McManus is what it says on his driver's license, passport and, except for a missing "S" on the mailbox outside his 40-acre Monkton, Md. horse farm. His luggage carries the initials J.K.McM. in brass. The name change took place in 1950 when McManus, then a young reporter for a fledgling TV station in Baltimore, signed on with WCBS, a network-owned station in New York, to host a new daytime variety show. The show was to be called The Real McKay, a play on McCoy. In those days, radio and TV performers commonly took names that fit shows, not vice versa, so there were no questions asked. It was The Real McKay singing and interviewing celebrities, and it was to be Jim McKay permanently when the show died. McKay isn't so sure he would adopt a stage name if he had to do it over, but the fact that he did so has afforded him a lot of privacy in hotel rooms.

If few viewers know that McKay is married and has two children, even fewer know that those children are adopted—more on that presently. The elder McKay child, Mary, 31, is married and works with emotionally handicapped children in Philadelphia. Sean, 29 and single, virtually grew up in television, following his father from one ABC Sports venue to another. He joined NBC in 1979 and has risen rapidly on the TV rights acquisition side of the business.

At least four out of five people in the sports divisions of ABC and NBC haven't the foggiest notion that Jim McKay and Sean McManus are related. The reason probably lies in McKay's shunning celebrity and his insistence on keeping his family life strictly private. He doesn't run with the media crowd or comment on the air about his weekends in the Hamptons. "He was a friend more than he was a father," Sean says of his childhood. "There were a lot of nights when I went to bed crying because he was away. But he more than made up for it—probably double or triple—by the time we spent together."

After the '80 Winter Olympics, a viewer fired off a strong letter to the powers that be at ABC, denouncing McKay for "slurring" figure skaters Peter and Kitty Carruthers by mentioning they were adopted. The letter bumped around the network offices for a while, the writer receiving form letters that thanked her for her interest. More indignant than ever, she finally wrote to Dennis Lewin, the producer of Wide World.

Lewin wrote back, saying that McKay hardly meant to disparage the Carrutherses and that he was simply stating a fact. "P.S.," Lewin added, "you may be interested to know that both of Jim McKay's kids are adopted."

Another little-known side of McKay is his shyness. He feels uneasy talking on phones, and he finds his frequent flying to be something of a relief, because he doesn't have to answer phones while in the air. As for appearing before huge TV audiences, McKay says, "I can't picture 60 million people out there. And probably nobody could ever go on the air if he could." When McKay went to WCBS, he got to know Arthur Godfrey, who taught him a little trick: McKay should think of one person out there, not all umpteen million. Most of the time since then, McKay has been talking to Margaret. She knows the painful extent of his shyness. She has heard the story of his being too timid as a route boy for Collier's and Woman's Home Companion to knock on doors to collect his money. So he sent his little sister out to pick it up. Margaret still shakes her head over the fact that McKay took a year to muster up the courage to ask her for a date when they were reporters for the Baltimore Evening Sun. They went to an All-America Conference game between the Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers; he bought the tickets in advance so it would be harder for her to say no.

"Margaret," McKay said, "I should warn you, the Colts aren't very good. The only player they have is Y.A. Tittle. The 49ers have Frankie Albert and they're terrific, so it probably won't be close."

"Oh, no, I think it'll be a tie," Margaret said.