Good Sport

Hot on the heels of Dr. Ruth, we had a visit from another highly regarded broadcaster today--sports writer/commentator Frank Deford. The event was being held by WFCR, the NPR affiliate in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Deford was their special guest speaker for the evening. 

Strictly a Sharpshooter! Frank Deford at Norman Rockwell Museum.
Photo ©Jeremy Clowe for Norman Rockwell Museum. All rights reserved.

Although I'm not a huge sports fan myself, I always enjoy listening to Deford's commentary that airs every Wednesday on NPR's Morning Edition. He has a great style in his delivery, and his segments frequently address the world of ethics in sports--something that is a true concern in this age of steroids and big moneyed sports franchises. 

Deford obviously has a love for the game--he joined Sports Illustrated back in 1962 (he's now their senior correspondent), serves as a regular correspondent for HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, and has read over 1500 segments on NPR. He recently released an autobiography of his life as a sportswriter, titled Over Time, which he was signing during the Museum event-- I picked up a copy, which he graciously signed for me (including some words of encouragement on my upcoming nuptials). 

Deford is a tall man--not quite what I pictured when I hear him on the radio (that's usually the case with radio personalities!). Yet he certainly has a grace about him, which also comes through in his radio announcing. We walked to the new Norman Rockwell Museum exhibition called Norman Rockwell: Sports, and I did my best to try and interest him in doing a feature on some of Rockwell's iconic sports imagery (I would love to hear his take on it). Like Rockwell, here is a guy who can really draw you in with his storytelling--there is an honest and pure gift there... at age 73, I'm sure he has seen a lot, and it is nice to have an elder commentator add his viewpoint to current sports discussions... frankly, I think it is sorely needed. As I have grown older I appreciate the value of sports--from health to dealing with adversity, to the idea of teamwork--I know that Deford also gets it--that this is (and should be) the heart of sports' appeal.

Nice to meet off the radio, and I wish his beloved Baltimore Orioles the best of luck this season.


Related Links:


www.frankdefordbook.com


www.npr.org/series/4499275/sweetness-and-light

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/frank_deford/archive/index.html

In The Zone

Photo courtesy AJ Vittone. All rights reserved.

The man who dubbed me "The Clowe Show," the title of my last post, is having his own luck in the world of showbiz lately. AJ Vittone, a friend from my days at The University of Hartford, just appeared in episode six of the new TV series Magic City, airing on the Starz network. 

Set in Miami, Florida, in the year 1959, Magic City tells the story of Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the owner of Miami's most glamorous hotel, the Miramar Playa. Evans is forced to make an ill-fated deal with Miami mob boss Ben Diamond (Danny Huston) to ensure the success of his glitzy establishment. In episode six, titled "The Harder They Fall," Ike and Ben make a huge bet on a boxing match, and the ring announcer is the smooth-talking Jimmy Powers, played by none other than Mr. Vittone! It sounds like perfect casting... 

STN 10-year reunion, 2003. Photo courtesy Mike Cohen.
All rights reserved.

I got to know AJ as a fellow co-founder of STN, the student-run television station at University of Hartford back in 1993. I served as a reporter, and Aaron was our sports anchor (what you might call "a natural"). I always appreciated his energy and zaniness... punctuating the game highlights with a "jaaaammm..." here and a "jaaaammm..." there. As the first group of students at the school to produce a weekly TV newscast, it was sort of trial by fire... but a perfect opportunity to learn about producing a live TV broadcast... I'm proud of what we accomplished! 

Channel 2 is still going strong to this day... AJ and I went back for the ten year reunion of STN, and I was amazed to see how far the organization (and technology) had come... hell, we thought we had it good with a chyron machine-! 

After college, AJ went on to work at WENY-TV in Elmira, New York, and I was extremely grateful when he helped my cousin Damian find a job as a fellow sportscaster at the station. It was weird to visit Damian not long after he had secured that job, and see the two of them bantering back and forth on highlight reels!

When I started working in the Berkshires in 2001, I learned that AJ had also moved to the area. A native of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, he had decided it was also time for a change, and moved back to his hometown to start doing more freelance work, and began hosting Sports Page Live on the Cox Sports Television network, based out of Providence, Rhode Island. It was good to reconnect again, and he hadn't lost any of his trademark silliness... 

In the years that followed, he began filling in for some of the TV news stations in the Albany, New York area, as well as developing his own TV program devoted entirely to the sport of boxing. After a brief stint in Florida, he decided late last year to move to Los Angeles, California... I think I may have been one of the first to learn about his plans, and was happy to hear about his fulfillment of a long-time dream. 

The gig with Magic City was apparently a fluke--an "outside the box" tip from his agent (pun intended). It sounds like AJ's background as a sports announcer (including actual ringside announcing for boxing matches) has paid off. Since the show is based in the 1950s, he tells me that he had to endure makeup and wardrobe to get the look (hopefully he fared better than my dorky reporter get-up for the movie Taking Woodstock). Apparently he also ad-libbed some of his lines, which made it into the final scene. Here is a preview of the episode:

The show seems to be an attempt to mine the "retro goldmine" a la Mad Men. I'm dying to see it, as well as the episode! Unfortunately, we don't get the Starz network, and I don't see the episode online yet. Nevertheless, I'm proud of my friend-- there never really was any doubt AJ would find success after UHA. Of course, he has also caught the acting bug-- even landed a role in an independent film recently. It's nice to hear when good people get a break, and I hope he keeps the "jaaaammm...." going!

Related Links:

www.ajvittone.net

www.starz.com/originals/MagicCity

www.stn2.tv

"Native lands cable role," Berkshire Eagle, April 6, 2012