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So … the question is … should be it a song from YELLO or The Pet Shop Boys?

Actually, I’m somewhat partial to Billy Joel.

Forgive me for taking this moment to reminisce.

I am speaking about one very special evening in January 1990 and the choice music used to introduce the BYU Cougars during the home teams’ opening night of NCAA Men’s Volleyball.

A decade after graduating from Brigham Young, I reconnected with BYU’s exceptional Volleyball coach Carl McGown who was still at the helm of the BYU Cougars when the school’s athletic administration finally agreed to move the team into NCAA Division I status. McGown, now the official head coach of the BYU Cougars called me from his office within Smith Fieldhouse one day in early December 1989 and told me he needed a uniform sponsor for his new NCAA team.

This is what happened.

***

McGown said that if I could persuade an athletic manufacturer to sponsor his team; and that I would come back to Provo, Utah to market and promote the first three home BYU NCAA Volleyball matches against Pepperdine, USC and UCLA then he would pay me $5,000.

After graduating from BYU in the mid-1980’s, I moved to Orange County in Southern California and re-opened my own Public Relations company. Business was pretty good and my firm was focused on clients in the home furnishings industries that manufactured decorative accessory manufacturers. Going to trade shows in High Point, North Carolina was as about as far away from sports marketing that you can possible get. But who can turn away from an easy five grand? It wasn't about the money … I just had the “Volleyball bug” again and wanted to see if I could capture lightening in a bottle just as I did back in 1980 during my college days when I worked with McGown in promoting his club Volleyball team. He and I worked well together, packing in the on-campus Smith Fieldhouse arena to the rafters for McGown’s exhibition matches against the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans.

So I said yes to McGown and immediately started working the phones with the local Southern California sales representatives who managed the sports marketing for manufacturers such as PUMA, NIKE and ADIDAS. None of them panned out. Then I called an old friend, Barbara Boskovich, who was doing the Western USA marketing for ASICS. One thing led to another and within a few days, Barbara committed ASICS to a multi-year clothing sponsorship contract for BYU Volleyball worth $145,000. Certainly not a fortune but it furnished McGown with the very best on and off court clothes for his players; as well as four pairs of new shoes per player during each season.

And I got a check!

So, after years of operating my own successful public relations company in Southern California, there I was.

Back in Provo again.

After arriving on campus, I sat down with McGown, he quickly set the parameters, “Ruffie, I can give you a $500 promotional budget and we want to pack the house for our first match against Pepperdine University.” It was to be a reunion of Marv Dunphy who coached Pepperdine (and had previously the United States men’s Olympic Volleyball Team to a Gold Medal at the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics) against Carl McGown and his BYU Cougars. In reality, McGown was really saying, “Ruffie, wow me. Knock my socks off. Do something that everyone in the world of Volleyball will be talking about forever”.

All for only $500.

Leaving McGown’s well-worn and cramped offices, I stepped into the Smith Fieldhouse for the first time in nearly a decade and immediately trotted up to the top bleachers. Alone, I breathed in the atmosphere and tried to remember what it was like nearly a decade earlier. The venerable old girl hadn’t changed all that much. The Fieldhouse had undergone a renovation in 1985 and the old press box above the court was gone. Smith Fieldhouse had been the home of BYU Basketball for more than 20 years and the University needed the press box above the court when it played host to numerous home basketball games and NCAA Regional Basketball competition. Spanning a glance left and right across the length of the arena, I started grinning Alice’s Cheshire cat. I could see it all. It was materializing right in front of my eyes and I knew exactly how to turn the opening night of NCAA Men’s Volleyball at Brigham Young University was going to be something no one at this school had ever witnessed. I was playing over and over in my brain like a time-worn movie until my skull was ready to pop.

Sitting there in the stands, I would see it all; the fans, the atmosphere. BYU winning (fat chance of that really happening) against their opening night opponent. Honestly, I didn't care who the Cougars would be matched-up against. It really was of no consequence. The event, the atmosphere, the possibilities. I was going to make this the most incredible Volleyball spectacular next to an Olympic Games. So, about one week before the match began, all of the marketing elements that I had planned were in place including extensive media coverage from the Salt Lake City and Utah Valley media; the key placement of posters promoting this one single sports event and banner signage across the major boulevards in downtown Provo.

But let’s rewind back for just a moment … In 1979, I was the Assistant Editor for MountainWest Magazine, a monthly publication my parents had purchased after they too relocated from Southern California to Provo. During a story on the first NBA Basketball game in Utah, I received a press pass and sat on press row when the former New Orleans Jazz debuted as the Utah Jazz. Every fan that walked into the Salt Palace was given a two sided Commerative Scroll to honor this first NBA Game in the state of Utah.

Taking a cue from the NBA, I did the same thing for the first BYU Men’s Volleyball match. With McGown’s approval, I wrote a welcoming message from Carl McGown on one side of a piece of paper, with the home schedule of the Cougars on the back. I had about 2,000 copies made on light brown paper and recruited several students to help me personally roll each and every one of them – tied in the middle with a white ribbon.

***

I really had no doubt that the BYU student body would come out in full force and support McGown’s freshman NCAA team but I still used some of my limited budget to run full page ads in The Daily Universe (the daily student newspaper that I was Sports Editor in 1981), three days prior to opening night. As I walked around the campus, in the shadow of BYU vs. Pepperdine posters that I placed everywhere, I could see students sitting together reading the school newspaper and talking about what they were going to do that coming Friday night. Everyone was talking up the Volleyball match against Pepperdine. The buzz was again on and I had a sure-fire winner.

So, let’s fast-forward to Opening Night ...

I had arranged for a group of 20 student ticket-takers and ushers coming to work that evening and I asked them all to come wearing white shirts and black slacks. Then I handed them all a clip-on black bow tie as well as a black cummerbund. They all looked great. Just like models right out of a Brooks Brothers catalogue.

When you are managing a sporting event that started at 7 p.m., you have to be there at least by 4:00 p.m. to “work the room”.

Think of being a Pit Boss that works a casino.

The Pit Boss will show up hours before “game time” to survey his turf. In other words, I was the BYU Pit Boss and was there to walk the competition court and to look at everything. Look at every wall, every seat; to look at every possibly minute item that a fan or a working journalist might look at.

Nothing passes the eye of this Pit Boss!

Now, one special thing that I created that I didn’t want anyone to know about, or even see, before the match began.

Before I flew up to Provo to meet with McGown, I had 8 x 8 vinyl banners made with, and in the colors, name and with the logo of each team in the WIVA – the West Coast Intercollegiate Volleyball Association conglomerate that included teams from the Big West Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Pacific-10 Conference and the West Coast Conference. The WIVA had the very best men’s Volleyball teams in America and was a league that included perennial powerhouses UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, Stanford, San Diego State and now Brigham Young. When deciding to join the NCAA, Carl McGown really had no other choice but to petition the BYU athletic administration to join the WIVA as there was simply no other league in the country that the Cougars could join.

So, on one side of the Smith Fieldhouse were banners depicting the six teams that made up the “Western Division” of the WIVA: UCLA, USC, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and BYU – with the “Eastern Division” being Loyola Marymount, Stanford, San Diego State, Cal State Northridge and the University of the Pacific. Each banner was in the primary colors of each school with each name in bold block letters.

Certainly nothing new on the BYU Campus as the athletics administration does the same for BYU Basketball in the 22,000 seat Marriott Center with every team of the West Coast Conference having the same style banners in the upper sections of that arena, so I figured it would be easily acceptable to the fans, administrators e when they first walked into the Smith Fieldhouse. It was my mantra to always ask forgiveness instead of permission – especially at a church-run university; and, if I’m allowed to say so, the banners really looked great and a variation of them are still up (as of this writing) at all BYU Men’s Volleyball matches in the Smith Fieldhouse.

With the building set and ready to go … and now about 90 minutes before the match was to begin, a truck pulled up just left of the front entrance and within moments fired up a Xenon 6, a well-known illumination addition to any Hollywood premier. The Xenon 6, unlike one single searchlight, comes equipped with four independent 5,000 watt searchlights. When these babies fired up, they lit up the entire Utah Valley and could be seen 30 miles away. Having lived most of my youth in Southern California, I knew these searchlights would not only pull people in from everywhere just to see what is going on but add to the exciting ambiance of the event. Curiosity is a wondrous thing as the entire lower campus of BYU was instantly transformed into Hollywood and Vine. You would not believe the number of people who were now clamoring to get into Smith Fieldhouse. When you work a special event, you want to keep people waiting as long as possible before you open the floodgates so on purpose we kept the doors closed as long as possible. Since it was open seating for this event at Smith Fieldhouse, once the door flew open it would be a title wave of thousands of people clambering to get inside.

A few other items to mention ...

During the 1950’s, Smith Fieldhouse, home to the BYU Basketball team was notorious for noise.

It is a confined space where the proverbial pin drop can be heard at the top of the stands when empty; but when you put 5,000 people inside Smith Fieldhouse, the building shakes to its foundation. At the top left side of the stands, on a platform, is an organ, with keyboard intact, still in place. I looked through some old athletic journals and found the name of the decades-long organist who played live music (including the BYU Cougar Fight Song) throughout each basketball game.

I called Ralph Zobell at BYU Sports Information, got his telephone number and personally invited the organist to return to the Fieldhouse and play the great organ music that for so many years added to the rich sports heritage at BYU. He quickly accepted and I made a point to greet him when he entered the workers entrance of the arena and we chatted away as I walked with him to the upper section of the Fieldhouse and his “long lost friend”.

Now, everything was just about set.

The final piece and most important person in the arena was that of Head Janitor, Stuart Randolph. A Janitor? Excuse me but did we have a spill of baby food on aisle eight?

Just what was his role in the mind of my madness?

Just wait.

You are going to love this …

***

You can’t believe the rush of energy that motivated sports fans bring with them. Once the doors of Smith Fieldhouse cracked opened, there were dozens, then hundreds of people running - running – to get their prime seat. Hey, in sports and as in life, when you snooze you lose. Fans that came in late were scrambling to the upper sections. Then the in-house organ fired up and it sounded so sweet. Just like being at a MLB baseball game but inside a sports arena. Both Pepperdine and BYU continued their warms up – now with about 15 minutes before the match was to start. Talk about tension – it was thicker than marmalade on a cold winter’s morning. The fans were buzzing. Pepperdine was and of this writing, today coached by the marvelous Marv Dunphy and seeing both him and Carl McGown on the same court was just great. Of course I wore my best dark suit, white shirt and tie and stood on center court chatting with McGown.

I love the game of Volleyball.

With the warm-ups over, both teams cleared the floor with the sweepers moving up and down to clear the surface.

And I was the public address announcer.

Why not? It was my event and I told Carl beforehand that I was going to do it and that was that.

So, I pressed the talk button and let it rip.

First up was the traditional welcome, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Smith Fieldhouse for the first NCAA Men’s Volleyball match between the visiting Pepperdine Waves and YOUR BYU Cougars”.

I might have mentioned before about the noise level in this building.

Just by my saying that, the crowd roared.

First up in the pre-game festivities was a barbershop quartet. I found these four guys singing in the hallways of the BYU Music Department one week earlier and they were really great. I put this no-name group in the requisite black tie and cummerbund and they came to center court to sing the National Anthem. The Star Spangled Banner never sounded so sweet with live organ music playing, 5,000 people stood and sang along.

Remember that this is a church school and as tradition at every single BYU athletic match, no matter the sport, every home game begins with an opening prayer and that’s where I pulled another rabbit out of my bag of tricks.

Brigham Young University is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is based in Salt Lake City, some 40 miles to the north of the campus.

One of the unspoken rules at BYU is that no student – perhaps I should have underlined the word NO – is ever allowed to contact one of the Church’s General Authorities which runs the day-to-day ecclesiastical operations of the worldwide faithful. Purposely so, because the University leaders do not want the men who run the Church to be inundated with every student so and so who has this or that issue they wanted to discuss with “The Brethren”. If you opened the floodgates for BYU students to call on the General Authorities for a personal or public issue, there would be gridlock in the Salt Lake Valley. But we’re not talking about reaching out to the Pope in the Vatican here. The men who run the 10+ million member LDS Church are in and of themselves some of the most successful businessmen in the world and preside over a multi-billion dollar Church operation. With faithful members of the Church freely self-tithing themselves of 10% of their gross earnings, the LDS Church over the decades has wisely invested their funds and is one of the wealthiest organized religions on the face of the planet. Besides having a Latter-day prophet at the head of the Church, the LDS Church members believe that Planet Earth is itself is overseen by a body of 12 men; a latter-day version of the original Church when Christ himself walked the Jordan Valley, amply called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

About one week before opening night, I was speaking with Carl McGown on who should give the opening prayer - which is a very big deal at any BYU athletic event - and he mentioned that one of the General Authorities, Elder L. Tom Perry was himself pretty much a Volleyball fanatic.

I asked McGown if he had any issues about me contacting Elder Perry’s office in Salt Lake City and inviting him to drive down to Provo and pray for his (McGown’s) team. Silently knowing that BYU was probably going to be crushed by Marv Dunphy’s Pepperdine squad, I figured the Cougars would stand in need of some divine intervention anyway. Okay, so even though BYU students were prevented from calling the Pope, I mean the General Authorities of the Church, that didn’t prevent me from doing so. I was an alumnus of BYU and not a student, so I was not beholden to these rules. I just stood to fracture my contract with the University but I thought, what the heck.

So I telephoned LDS Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City and finally reached Elder Perry’s secretary whom I sweet talked with for a few minutes before I spoke with the man himself. Now, for me to understand how to run a world-wide Church is a bit outside of my pay grade. I just wanted to make a major statement about the start of NCAA Men’s Volleyball at BYU.

I spoke with Elder Perry for a few minutes and he most graciously said that he would come down to the campus with his wife and offer the opening prayer.

Again let’s go back to the “Mormon” thing for a second. At BYU, when a General Authority shows up at a sporting event, it is about as big as it gets, unless the Prophet himself shows up. And when the Prophet of the Mormon Church does show up on the BYU Campus, like the President of the United States who walks in to the tune of “Hail to the Chief”, the entire student body, upon first seeing him, will immediately stop whatever they are doing, stand ramrod straight and sing – sing mind you – “We Thank Thee O God For A Prophet”, the text of which was written in the mid 1960’s by William Fowler, a convert to Mormonism. Perry is a few steps below the President of the LDS Church but the Mormon faithful still regard him as a “Prophet Seer and Revelator” in his own right. So about five minutes before the match was to begin, Elder Perry and his wife entered the Fieldhouse, sans the student body singing, and sat right behind me in pre-reserved front-row seats. Once the National Anthem was over, with the deepest baritone I could pull from my chest, said the following, “And now, offering tonight’s opening prayer, is Elder L. Tom Perry, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ... Brother Perry.”

I think it was then that 5,000 people probably collectively peed - right on the spot.

Instantly the riotous crowd went “Church Silent” and took a collective gasp as the 6’3” Perry stood and then stepped around my left side. I handed him the microphone; he looked down at me and winked, then closed his eyes. “O Heavenly Father” … Elder Perry started in on his prayer and the arena froze in time. It was no different than this giant of a man praying at the twice yearly General Conference of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City. For Mormons, the significance of Elder L. Tom Perry giving the opening prayer was nothing less than pure Heavenly energy coursing through the building. I have no doubt that with enough faith that night; Elder Perry could have easily opened up the ceiling and mystically/magically have created a skylight to appear and the sun to shine.

“In the name of Jesus Christ … Amen” and with the crowd giving it’s “amen”, Elder Perry handed the microphone back to me, extended his left hand to pat my shoulder and then returned to his seat. I immediately boarded in with announcing the starting six players of the Pepperdine Wave team on the left side of the court. Just name and position was all, then, “and the head coach of the Pepperdine Waves … Marv Dunphy”! That was followed by another roar from the crowd.

Now from here … everything went a bit off the rails.

***

When you have the opening night of any sporting event, you only have one chance to get it right. Such is life. So for weeks I was planning something … spectacular. Something that would put the Cougars on the Volleyball map for a decade. Something that had never been done before at any BYU athletic event.

Remember that I had been prowling the halls of the BYU Music Department? That is where I found the barbershop quartet. But that was an afterthought. I was really looking for were lighting technicians, who could illuminate the inside of Smith Fieldhouse in a way that has never been done before. I was lucky to come across one crusty old fellow, buried in the basement of the building who grinned ear to ear when I told him what my warped brain was considering turning into reality. The biggest issue was not if it could be done, but if anything went wrong in a building as old as Smith Fieldhouse, I stood to black out not only the BYU Campus and possibly the entire energy grid of Utah Valley in doing so. That would have been bad. Getting his triple re-assurance that I would not blow every circuit in the arena, I used the last of the meager $500 that McGown had given me as a marketing budget and hired four lighting technicians, arranged for all of their stage lighting equipment to be delivered three hours before the match was to begin (remember about being there at 4:00 p.m.) and paid them all - in advance - for their services.

I’m a believer in paying for things in advance. I will cook 4 kg of Southern Fried Chicken and freeze it just so I know that I have it. I will pay my rent for three months in advance. Yada. Yada. In this case, I had no issue paying the student technicians in advance, as well as their truckers to haul all of the equipment in and the helping hands to lift everything in place.

Let’s rewind the clock for just a second.

Three days before the match against Pepperdine was set to begin, McGown introduced me to his Volleyball players. They were sitting in the lower stands of the Fieldhouse and in front of them I explained every detail that was going to transpire on opening night. I could see their collective chins dropping when I explained how the team was going to be introduced. Then I introduced my “secret weapon” … the resident janitor and I explained his time-critical role. To me, he was the most important person in the arena. Not the BYU players and certainly not McGown nor his coaching staff as they were just passengers on my bus.

I would either make it to Heaven or crash and burn.

***

So as soon as the Pepperdine Waves team was introduced, the banging and cheering and the NOISE level ramped up to a fevered pitch. My blood pressure was about to burst my heart out of my chest and eight seconds later, the Smith Fieldhouse went dark.

As black as your bedroom at 3:30 a.m.

Four indoor searchlights then fired-up, all simultaneously bursting onto the BYU Inaugural Banner hanging over center court.

The crowd EXPLODED!

The noise level was deafening. Just as I expected it would be. Then I pressed THE button. Not just any button but that of a cassette tape that was hard wired into the Fieldhouse’s massive sound system. The music fired up and the internal spotlights circled the banner and then rotated into the crowd like a Hollywood premier. This lasted for only 34 seconds but for me it was an eternity. I have seen this one moment in time from every angle of the building. In my mind, I have seen it 1,000 times from everywhere; from every corner of the Fieldhouse. From a fan’s perspective on the last row of the arena ... to sitting next to Elder Perry on the front row.

The song that I used? After endless hours of soul-searching, I finally decided it would be Oh Yea, the theme song by Yello from the movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

I had timed two others; the first was “Something Happened on the Way to Heaven” by Phil Collins and the second was “Always on My Mind” by the Pet Shop Boys. In hindsight, I probably should have gone with the Pet Shop Boys but there was only a non-singing element of the British Duo’s song for the first 35 seconds. About the same time period for Phil Collins as well. After that, I would be competing against these singers on the public address system, so finding the right music to introduce the Cougars starting six was absolutely critical. Once the searchlights crisscrossed the arena, I went back to the microphone and said, “And now, let’s welcome the starting line-up of YOUR BYU COUGARS”.

And then the crowd really went nuts.

So, I slowly lowered the volume of the tape recorder with my left hand and held a flashlight in my right so I could read the starting line-up of the BYU team. Not being able to read the names of the starting lineup for BYU would have equally have been bad. Finally the spotlights rested on Carl McGown for his introduction and two seconds later, the house lights were turned back on.

Wow.

So, let's get back to the janitor. Well, the only person I could trust and the only person who had the keys to the circuit breakers for the arena was the janitor, Stuart Randolph. Without him, this could never have been pulled off. Here’s why. Immediately after I said the name “Marv Dunphy”, I had planned with Randolph, in advance, that he was to pull the circuit breakers and kill all lights in the Smith Fieldhouse. The problem was that he couldn’t hear me say Dunphy’s name over the public address system because of the noise from the crowd. Since he couldn’t hear my cue, Randolph sprinted from his position at the electric power grid to the entrance of the arena, saw that the Pepperdine team has already been announced, and then pivoted and ran back to hit the master switch.

That took eight very long seconds and let me tell you, eight seconds can be a lifetime. But the anticipation by the crowd for the announcement of the BYU team only made the impact of the spotlights that much more dramatic. For you see, the lighting technicians were under strict orders not to turn on their spotlights until the house lights went off. So in hindsight, the delay by Randolph in darkening the arena worked out for the best. The emotional impact of the darkened arena, interior spotlights with pounding rock music created exactly what I was hoping for. The opening night of BYU Volleyball was not just another Volleyball match but a major sporting event; a spectacular opening of NCAA Volleyball in Provo, Utah that no one that had seen it would ever forget.

But I keep thinking about the Pet Shop Boys. Certainly this means nothing to the people attending the match but it did for me. I am sure the emotional impact to the spectators would not have changed. Once the opening introductory festivities ended, it came down to the match and as I thought, the Cougars were crushed in three straight games. With the match over, I made the rounds to thank everyone who was involved in the pre-match festivities, especially with Elder Perry.

It can’t hurt making friends with a man who talks with God on a daily basis.

As I was mulling around on center court, a stocky gentleman came up to me, introduced himself and we chatted for a few minutes and offered me a concept that not only would end up changing my life forever but brought me to four Olympiads, including the Beijing Summer Olympics.

His name is Bob McGregor.

***

A native Hawaiian, Bob had spent the first half of 1989 working as a general field reporter for KPUA radio in Hilo, Hawaii.

On the Big Island of Hawaii, Bob had been one of the key radio broadcasters for the Hilo Vulcan Volleyball program in 1989 for KPUA and attended the US Open Volleyball championships in Salt Lake City that summer. While he was in Utah receiving an award, Bob had heard from some of his island friends that BYU was going to move their Volleyball program from club level to NCAA. Bob had recently applied for a graduate program at BYU and was looking forward to acceptance into that program.

Bob left the station's employment at the end of the Vulcan's Fall 1988 Volleyball season. After he returned from Utah and while his application for acceptance into the BYU Master’s Communications program was pending, he decided to go ahead and sell his Hawaii holdings and move to Utah. Bob had completed a deal with a condo property to take a unit with them in December, and figured that Christmas would be as good a time as any to move. So by the time the Vulcan Volleyball season was over, Bob was ready to make his move. After the holidays, and having not yet received any type of response from BYU regarding his Master’s admission, Bob drove down to Provo in early January to see what was happening with his application. He introduced himself to Carl McGowan, whom he had never met but heard a lot about from his stint at BYU-Hawaii and his involvement with Bob’s father, who was active in coaching the BYU Hawaii Volleyball programs.

Bob had run several exhibitions at BYU Hawaii and had raised substantial funds for the Volleyball programs at the institution. But his father had passed seven years before, and was not certain as to whether Coach McGowan would remember his family, let alone Bob himself.

When that fateful day arrived when he was to meet McGown, about two to three weeks prior to the opening night match, Bob quickly dispensed with his planned visit to the BYU Admissions Office, still being told that no action had been taken regarding his application. So with great trepidation, Bob headed off to the Fieldhouse to find Carl McGown.

After getting lost at least three times, Bob finally found McGown’s small office on the second floor of the Fieldhouse. When he introduced himself, it seemed that McGown did recall Bob’s family, and was somewhat interested in utilizing his broadcasting talents. But to Bob’s surprise, McGown picked up the phone and made a telephone call, and after a short conversation, Bob found myself talking to a guy he had only met perhaps once while I was a student at BYU Hawaii in the 1980's. Of course that individual was myself and I wanted to know of Bob’s background in media and he told me of my radio experience in both live and TV simulcasting.

Bob gave me his references and thought nothing more would come of it. After the phone conversation, Bob thought that was going to be the end of things between us. McGown had given Bob a couple of comp tickets to the opening night and the first three matches which he readily accepted.

Bob was surprised that I had called his references and they both recommended him for any type of broadcasting opportunities … for you see, Bob was the only person in the United States of America that had actually broadcast the sport of Volleyball on radio.

Yes, you heard me right. Play by play sports radio broadcasting of Volleyball. Not Basketball, not Football … but Volleyball on radio. And apparently Bob was pretty good at it and his comments to me were effusive. We can do this; we can do that. He just went on and on. Then he got me thinking that we could actually do it.

Together, we were a dangerous combination.

Well, we exchanged telephone numbers; “my secretary will call yours” type of talk. I still had two more home Volleyball matches to promote – BYU hosting UCLA and USC – which kept me in Utah Valley for another three weeks. Even with the Cougars losing all three matches, the team drew about 14,000 spectators for three nights in a 5,000 seat arena. I went back to southern California with $5,000 in my pocket and attendance for BYU Volleyball, with all of the marketing and promotion now stopped, dropped to about 200 fans a match.

No more searchlights, no more music.

No fun.

This is typical of most university sports programs that I’ve seen over the decades. Creating an exciting, thrilling sporting event does not necessarily take a lot of time but it does take a focused effort and I was an army of one. Just give me a staff of motivated people and I could be dangerous!

As the months passed by, I would get an occasional telephone call from Bob, asking me what I thought about his ideas of putting Volleyball at BYU on commercial radio. The he went further, asking me come to Provo and help him negotiate the radio contract with a Utah Valley radio station, KSRR Radio and then to return to Provo in mid-January 1991 as his color commentator for all of the home matches that he intended to broadcast.

Generally radio stations are categorized by the power it has approved to send out its signal. In America, its listed in watts. Radio stations may be in the 1,000 watt range; 5,000 watt or 50,000 powerhouse stations that can be heard in nearly ¼ of the USA. In the case of KSRR, it was a small 1,000 watt station but it had a clean and clear signal throughout Utah Valley. When your targeted market lives within a 40 mile radius from the BYU Campus, you really didn’t need much more.

Cutting the deal with the radio station was right up my alley – but what did I know about broadcasting Volleyball? In fact, what did anyone know about broadcasting this sport on radio? No one in the world had broadcast it, unless it was during the Summer Olympic Games.

In America, there are only four sports that get any attention by either TV or radio and they are in this order:

•Football

•Men’s Basketball

•Baseball

•Ice Hockey

You may be a fan of Women’s Basketball or Rugby, but you are totally out of luck to hear any of these sports or your favorite Volleyball team on the radio. It simply doesn’t happen because there is no sponsor/advertising money attached to it. If there was millions of dollars flowing into radio stations to do live play-by-play radio of NCAA Men’s or Women’s Volleyball, you know everything would be different. But the simple fact is that no one cares about these sports in the media and since the dozen or so US West Coast universities that field a NCAA Division I men’s Volleyball teams do so more out of tradition more than as a revenue source, the sport is regulated to minor or “Olympic Sport” status. But then, there was Bob McGregor, who used his own personal money to fund this live radio programming at Brigham Young University. Bob personally paid KSRR Radio 1400 AM in Utah Valley to broadcast all of the 1991 BYU Men’s Volleyball home matches and paid for my airline tickets (round trip) from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. Bob just didn’t dream about something, he brought it to life. A lot of people talk a good “game” in this world but Bob put his money on the table. He showed me the possibilities of a sport like Volleyball that everyone had overlooked. I mean, look, Volleyball is an Olympic sport and the United States of America crushed all opponents to win back to back Olympic Gold Medals in 1984 and 1988, yet on the Men’s NCAA level it was about as popular as competitive chess.

And I like chess.

Bob’s plan to broadcast all of the BYU home matches in 1991 and if by virtue of putting the matches on live commercial radio station in Utah Valley, he believed that he could generate enough corporate support from the local business community and pay himself back from his initial investment.

***

The first NCAA Men’s Volleyball match ever broadcast on commercial radio was Brigham Young University hosting the USC Trojans on January 16, 1991.

Bob was going to call the action and I was his color man, which basically is someone who goes on the air to garble a few words that sounds fairly intelligent. Bob McGregor was running the show. I just sat back and ran with it.

I did the pre-game show that lasted for a half an hour before the match began. If you think eight seconds to have an arena go dark is an eternity, let me tell you, 30 minutes, minus two, two-minute commercial breaks, is a very long time. I took my portable cassette tape recorder and sat down to interview Carl McGown about one hour before the pre-game show was about to begin … and like every man or women who have ever been a head coach, McGown just loved talking about his team and the sport of Volleyball. He was glowing and loved the fact that his sport was going out over the local airways. Everything about college sports is local, local, local. Every coach wants his/her match to be available to his/her local community first and foremost. In the case of Carl McGown, this meant that his Athletic Director could be in his car driving to the local grocery store for a loaf of bread and a carton of milk and could listen to the BYU Volleyball match - live. It meant the entire BYU and Utah Valley community could listen to the match live. The radio medium, although clearly dwarfed by television, is still a powerful media tool.

And the fact that this was the first time NCAA Men’s Volleyball had ever been broadcast in America, Carl McGown simply loved the fact that he was a test rabbit.

He kept calling me “Ruffie” during the pre-game interview. I just let that go. I’ve always been a good interviewer and tapped into those skills to really hone in on McGown’s players. Mostly I just wanted to keep McGown talking to fill in the time. He was gushing praise for his players as every coach will. Lots of positive feelings. In Carl McGown, a man that I have always respected and held deep admiration for, I held a great swelling of pride to be associated with his program. With the interview over and with cassette tape in hand, I walked back to press row where Bob was reading through his notes. I handed him the tape and he listened to the opening that I just cut. He liked it and put it in his cassette tape machine that was hooked up to his audio board. Bob’s older brother, Dan, was over at the KSRR station and was producing the show with Bob and myself locked in place at Smith Fieldhouse. With the McGown interview, the 25 minutes or so that I had to fill was cut by a good 13 minutes. Thank God. So by the time I reached the end of the show, I passed the microphone over to Bob who began his opening remarks.

Me?

I made a beeline for the nearest bathroom.

Then I threw up in the sink.

***

Like everyone else in America who has never heard play-by-play of Volleyball on radio, I was in awe of Bob McGregor. Words like “Stuff Block”, “Ace Serve” and “Deuce” now became common-place and stuck in my lexicon forever. Bob was riveted to the action on the court and I kept feeding him with statistics. For this first NCAA Volleyball radio broadcast we worked pretty well together. Actually we were great. We started to gel on the air and even though the USC Trojans crushed the BYU Cougars, I still got in a 30-minute post-game show in, including a live interview with Carl McGown. I went home the next morning to Los Angeles and it was another two weeks before I flew back to Salt Lake City, rented a car and made the one hour drive south to the BYU Campus. I didn’t mind the commute from California as I was earning a ton of frequent flyer mileage from the airline tickets that Bob was buying for me on Delta Air Lines. It was quickly beginning to become a routine: flying up to Provo on a Thursday morning for a broadcast that night and then another on Saturday night before going back to California on Sunday morning.

And to be honest, I was starting to get better on the air and started to enjoy the communication medium of radio. You have to think of radio like speaking into a box to someone far away. You have no idea who is on the other end of the line listening to you. It could be 10 people or it could be 1,000. You have to lose your fear of that. Fear has no place in your world when you are broadcasting sports. If I did, I would be sitting on the toilet during the entire match. By my third trip to Provo, I started to push Bob to split the play-by-play duties with me. I wanted a crack at it and he didn’t seem to mind. He took over the pre-game and post-game shows duties and with Volleyball played the best three of five games. I took the play-by-play of games one and three and Bob did game two which gave me a chance to run to the bathroom and pee. It was probably that first broadcast that I found … joy. Let me be honest to say that I was really into the groove of it and Bob and I were playing off each other very well. Whenever he would want to add something and I was riveted to calling the action on the court, he would put his hand on my shoulder which was his cue that he wanted to chime in. Immediately, I would finish my thought and motion with a pen or a hand cue back to Bob for him to make his comments.

We were really in sync.

Our duo lasted until the end of the regular season and that was it as the Cougars didn’t qualify for the WIVA Championship Tournament hosted that year at University of California at Irvine.

With the 5,000 seat Bren Events Center located about 10 minutes from my Irvine apartment in Orange County, I called the league commissioner, Bob Newcomb, to see if I could get a complimentary ticket to see the finals. Bob had been at BYU’s opening night’s men’s Volleyball match with Pepperdine the previous year and I made a contact with him. You know when life is in sync when you call someone who then says, “I was just thinking about you. Well, Newcomb said the same to me as he had, that very same morning, received a telephone call from the Rainbow Sports Radio Network in Honolulu. The Rainbow Warrior Men’s Volleyball team of the University of Hawaii had qualified for the WIVA Final Four and the Hawaii radio network was looking for someone to broadcast the Rainbow Men’s Volleyball match at UC Irvine on live radio back to Honolulu. Newcomb gave me the telephone number of David Iverson, owner of the network that had its corporate office in Seattle.

Iverson’s radio production company not only handled all of the Hawaii radio broadcasts but also that of Washington State where he himself served as the radio play-by-play voice for the Cougar football program.

Throughout the previous BYU Volleyball radio season and being a journalist by trade and a PR man by design, I hammered out press releases to not only the local Utah media about the Cougar Volleyball radio broadcasts but to the entire American print media marketplace. I’m pretty crazy about this. This press release, e-mail blitz also included all of the US-based Volleyball media and each of the media markets in the WIVA such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Honolulu. Because of the novelty of play-by-play Volleyball on radio, many newspapers wrote stories about Bob and myself, including the Honolulu Star Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser - which both of Bob and I had a local connection with – mine originating in Laie and Bob’s in Hilo.

Iverson was well aware of my broadcasting activities of the BYU Men’s Volleyball program and immediately, I was hired to broadcast, live back to Honolulu, the Rainbows’ competition in the WIVA finals.

Okay, now I need to explain what attending a NCAA Men’s Volleyball match is like in Hawaii.

Take a mixing bowl and add these ingredients:

•The showmanship of the Rolling Stones in concert

•The power of Elvis Presley singing “Suspicious Minds” live in Honolulu in 1973, and

•Sprinkle in the most passionate sports fans in America - and mix liberally!

This doesn't even come close to what the fanatical Volleyball fans the Hawaiians are. By the thousands, fans will flock to Honolulu International Airport and welcome home the Men’s and Wahine (Women’s) teams from key mainland or NCAA National Championship victories. In the islands, Volleyball players are treated and feted like royalty, even more so than football or basketball players. All of the University of Hawaii home Volleyball matches are carried live on the multi-station Rainbow Sports Radio Network with affiliate stations on each of the four neighbor islands; Kauai, Maui, Molokai and the Big Island of Hawaii. But in 1991, Iverson’s radio network was struggling to find someone who could do the play-by-play announcing of these US mainland matches back to Hawaii. I should also note that as early at the 1990’s KFVE-TV in Honolulu also carried a majority (if not all) home Volleyball matches from the Stan Sherriff Arena; the 10,000 seat on-campus facility at the university but none from the US Mainland due to the substantial satellite broadcast costs of sending the TV feedback to Hawaii.

So radio in Hawaii has and will always be the predominant form of sports radio coverage of the Hawaii teams on the US Mainland. By the tens of thousands, Hawaiians will listen to every call of every play the Rainbow Volleyball teams face, be it from UC San Diego, UCLA or Long Beach State. The more prominent the opponent – like the UCLA Bruins or USC Trojans – of course the greater the audience. Everywhere you go in Honolulu when the Rainbow Volleyball team is on the air live from more than 2,500 miles away on the US Mainland, be it in a Oahu shopping mall, drug store or driving across the H1 Interstate Highway.

In Hawaii …radio is king!

So it was that my first introduction to the University of Hawaii sport community came at the WIVA Championships with Alan Rosehill coaching the Rainbows in the first round of tournament competition. Since all of the broadcast equipment that I was familiar with for the BYU home Volleyball broadcasts belonged to Bob McGregor, and he was in 700 miles away in Salt Lake City, I connected with Iverson who was finishing a broadcast of University of Hawaii Basketball in San Diego and he lent me his broadcast set-up, including sound mixer board ad headsets. We had a good first meeting. The next night was the WIVA championship broadcast and Iverson’s Honolulu office faxed the radio log to me that I was to follow meticulously. The Rainbow Sports Radio Network had dozens of paid advertisers and voice-over drop in that was to be read, verbatim, during each game and throughout the match. This also included the pre- and post-match shows.

Everything was programed in.

***

One of the very cool things I liked about broadcasting sports for the University of Hawaii was that I could wear an Aloha shirt to the game - one of the most outlandish garments ever known to man - but one that looks great on you, be it on one of the Hawaiian islands or anywhere in the world. It is a statement about “your Aloha” and spiritual connection to everything Hawaiian and when you step into an area full of sports fans, they instantly know who you are rooting for. Being paid to broadcast an NCAA competition live back to Hawaii, the natural tendency is to favor the Hawaii team. Not necessarily to be a “homer”; that is someone who is unabashedly favoring one team over another, but clearly the spin put on the broadcast is one that has an affinity to the Rainbows.

On the main table used by official scorekeeper and statisticians, Newcomb set aside space not only for me, but for the broadcast equipment I was using. He was keen to put be on the left side of the table as I could sit about one meter to my left from the Hawaii head coach. Journalists were rarely in attendance at NCAA Men’s Volleyball matches and Newcomb did everything possible to accommodate me. He understood the power of radio. He understood that media coverage of this tournament was critically important for a sport that forever languishes at the bottom of any Athletic Director’s agenda and that in Hawaii, this non-televised event meant that radio ruled the roost and that tens of thousands of people would be listening to the match in Honolulu.

Like all Hawaii coaches, Alan Rosehill was very accommodating to a live radio format and allowed me to do my pre-game interview from my seated position. Hawaii coaches also know all their family and friends are intently listening to every single word. Of key importance to all coaches from Hawaii is the jet lag that every athlete faces. With the Hawaiian islands more than 2,500 miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, all University of Hawaii teams spend a considerable amount of time in flying to the US Mainland for their competition. With the case of this WIVA Volleyball Tournament, the Rainbows arrived in Los Angeles and then were bused south to the Irvine campus the day before competition. Rosehill wanted the fans back home to know that his players were well rested and ready for a fight.

I took this broadcast like a duck to water - utilizing all of the linguistical talents that Bob brought out in me during the previous three months. Radio is a fabulous medium, only if you have the “gift of gab”. I made this my broadcast and created my own call sign. As I would go to each commercial, I said the following, “Throughout the Hawaiian Islands, this is the Rainbow Sports Radio Network”. And that ended up being my call sign for every Hawaii broadcast that came afterward for the next eight years.

The Rainbows lost the match but Iverson liked what he heard and I was hired that week for the entire 1992 Rainbow Men’s and Wahine Volleyball season.

***

Broadcasting sports on radio is all about passion. Passion for athletics and passion for sport and in my case, the passion I had for the sport of Volleyball. And it was that passion … knowledge of the game and the love that I had for this sport that naturally came out. The key with radio is to paint “word pictures” in the minds of all listeners, young or old, that will draw people to each broadcast. I always wanted to bring each Volleyball broadcast alive; to make it a linguistical event …from the colors of the uniforms the players wore to the sheer all out drive that each student athlete brings to their sport. Basically, I wanted to pull every listener through the radio speakers, have them sit down next to me, pop a cold soda and enjoy the event with me. Fortunately, that was what I was able to do. To create and bring to life a linguistic world that would make Volleyball as exciting to the listener as any NCAA football or basketball game.

And I was “in the face” of the listener. You know that when you listened to me broadcast a sport event, I would give it my all. Total and complete focus on every facet of the match. If a player mishandled the ball, I would call it – sometimes so loudly that it many times would convince an umpire who, like anyone within the first three rows of an arena could hear my voice, to make the call. Many times, live on the air, I would challenge the umpire on his call and they would argue with me, many times to the consternation of both home and away coaching staffs. When that happened, I would grab a stick microphone and pointed it at the umpire and made him/her explain their rational for that particular ruling.

***

When the fall semester of 1992 rolled around, I was doing the play-by-play of all of the BYU Women’s matches, both in Provo and when they travelled on the road; as well as all of the mainland competition for the University of Hawaii Wahine. The two radio programs combined had me on the run – one night at San Diego State, the next at UCLA and the immediately on an airplane the next morning to hustle over to the BYU Smith Fieldhouse for an evening broadcast. I loved every minute of it. I had found my life’s calling and I reveled in it. Combining both the men’s and women’s competition of BYU and mainland competition for Hawaii. The money wasn’t great but it paid some bills. The most important thing was that I constantly was honing my skills and getting better each time I put on the headsets.

There was no way any of this would have happened without Bob McGregor’s patience with my frustrations and challenges. Volleyball is not the easiest sport to broadcast. Eventually, I invested several thousands of dollars of my own money in my own Sennheiser headphones, mixer board and other equipment. All of it fit nicely into a large Sideout Sport carrying bag that I took everywhere. Within about 10 minutes, I could be plugged in and ready to go. All I needed was a direct dial telephone and one power cord. Remember … its radio not TV. Radio is the most portable medium there is and I only carried what I needed, plus one backup cable.

***

Just before the start of the 1992 NCAA Women’s Volleyball broadcast season began, probably around July of that year, I got something in my head. That is a dangerous thing to do because once it’s there, it generally never gets away. And this brilliant idea started with a lunch at a local UC Irvine hamburger joint with Bob Newcomb and ended two hours later with my selling corporate sponsorships for the WIVA. This was a big step for me as it meant that I would be stepping out of the “shadow” of Bob McGregor and the BYU broadcasts with an all-new NCAA Men’s Volleyball Radio “Game of the Week” package (more on that in a moment) and marketing of the WIVA league with on-going PR.

Newcomb instantly said yes to my ideas and turned me loose. I quickly sold several solid sponsors. The first was a league title sponsorship to PowerBar, a Berkley, California based manufacturer of energy food bars. I sold them a one-year corporate sponsorship for $45,000 and they got their logo on all of the Volleyball nets that each team in the WIVA used, title sponsorship of the league tournament plus radio commercial time on the new league radio broadcasts I was setting up. The second WIVA Men’s Volleyball sponsor was Continental Airlines. The carrier gave more than 50, positive space airline tickets good to/from any US destination.

Now that was worth something!

So I took the tickets and sold them for cash to Bob Reese, the father of Carter Reese, who was playing for UC Santa Barbara at the time and then gave additional commercial time to his company, Motorvac, a manufacturer of automotive engine cleaning equipment. So now, I had more than $80,000 in cash from the sale of the airline tickets and three new league sponsors. All of this happened prior to the start of the 1992 Women’s season, so I really had my hands full getting all of the marketing elements ramped up to start for the men’s season that coming January.

Now, let me explain how I created this league radio deal.

1992-93 was a strategic year of growth for the Internet with introduction of Windows 2.1 starting to take off and 386-chip computers were popping up all over the place but it would still be years away before the consumer market would see Pentium processors from Intel. Also coming onto the scene was a new Internet audio company called AudioNet, based in Dallas, Texas that created a new service that is commonplace today; live streaming of music and sports through a home computer. Before AudioNet was dreamed of, sports fans who wanted to listen live to their favorite college sports team had to actually dial number, punch in their credit card and a live operator would then connect them to a radio feed of their specific sports team, generally football. Then you could turn on a speaker and listen to the game from the local radio broadcast.

***

In Sunland, California, a suburb of Los Angeles tucked away alongside the Southern California hillsides, is a small, unimpressive strip mall located near the Interstate 210 Freeway. Nestled within these uninspiring shops and grocery stores is a doorway to a downstairs office and the “headquarters” for the Cable Radio Network. Mike Horn was, and still is as of this writing, the founder and president of CRN which provides an eclectic brand of “radio” programming that is available exclusively to Cable TV subscribers. It is relatively obscure to find CRN on any of the cable TV listings, but it is there, and Horn had signed-up a solid list of nationwide Cable TV systems that carry his audio programming. I took a morning off and drove over to Sunland and met Mike at his CRN offices and, with some of the sponsor money in hand, prepaid for an entire season of NCAA Men’s Volleyball programming for the next January. I would create the radio log of commercials that CRN would follow and the music outcues and return from commercial breaks. And since every sports broadcast needs a music “bed” to end each broadcast, I used, “I Love Your Smile” by ‘90’s pop star Shanice which came out in 1991 and had a great beat.

Next was creating a three-step platform the for expansion of the sports broadcasts across America and around the world.

Step One: Have CRN carry the NCAA Men’s Volleyball programming which would give the NCAA Men’s Volleyball sports broadcasts a national, satellite platform. With CRN available throughout most all of North America, via satellite, it offered sports fans a chance to listen from pretty much anywhere.

Step Two: Link sports and news websites around the world to these new broadcasts. In 1992, this had never been done before and each of the more than 500 webmasters that I e-mailed jumped at this new opportunity and before you knew it, there were hundreds of web links found on websites across America and around the world that has the logo of CRN (and the embedded link to the station) and the schedule of the Volleyball broadcasts on their respective webpages.

Step Three: Build a commercial network of sports radio stations that would also take the CRN feed in total. Thinking really “out of the box”, the first radio station I contracted with was 660 AM, KTNN, located on the Navajo Indian nation’s reservation at Window Rock, Arizona in far eastern Arizona. Basically in the middle of nowhere. Now, why would I buy time on a Native American radio station that was the “Voice of the Navajo Nation”? Well, Dear Reader, radio stations that are low on the AM dial generally will generally have a better reception and, more important, the Native Americans were the sole owners of a FCC “grandfathered” 50,000 watt radio powerhouse. This means that during evening hours, when all of the NCAA Men’s Volleyball broadcasts would be aired, 660 on the AM dial would provide a gigantic “footprint” that would “throw” the broadcasts into 11 Western US states and even to Central Canada to the north. That means commercial radio coverage to all of California, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. This was huge. The station’s broadcast power was a “radio flamethrower” that would send the sports broadcasts to every major US metropolis east of Denver.

When you want something done in radio (specifically), and in business (in general) I went right to the decision maker at the top. In this case, I went directly to the station manager and sold him the idea of carrying the season package with a multi-year renewal clause. No, I never traveled to Window Rock but convinced the GM anyway.

Money is the great equalizer.

Then, just like with Mike Horn and CRN, I paid KTNN for the entire broadcast season in advance. Now I had the base foundation with CRN sending out the broadcast via satellite and KTNN carrying the sportscasts on its station. I then flew to Las Vegas (that I could do) and met with the station manager of KVEG AM Radio, an all-sports radio station and following the same pattern, signed this 50,000-watt station to the same NCAA Volleyball sports radio package. When the broadcasts started in January 1993, it was a mega hit. I even had the Los Angeles Times Sports Section running listings of each of the broadcast in its daily Radio/TV log.

NCAA Volleyball radio broadcasts were being listed right next to those for the Los Angeles Lakers!

This meant that NCAA Volleyball had finally arrived. Fans were dialing in, not only to CRN but listening in from around the world. Don’t forget that I was still producing and broadcasting the Hawaii radio broadcasts and as many of the BYU broadcasts that I could fit in to this new league broadcast package. Suffice to say, I was maxed out. By the time the 1993/94 broadcast seasons rolled around, I had to opt out of the BYU Volleyball programming. Bob understood the pressure I was under. The BYU women’s season was insane enough with the home and away broadcasts but adding the overlay of the Wahine broadcasts; but when it came to the Men’s season, I just couldn’t handle anymore.

***

Here’s the thing, I was now the definitive “voice” of Volleyball in America and, in all respect to Bob, had gone far beyond the broadcasts he was doing for KSRR. Not to acknowledge Bob’s help in putting me on this path would be entirely inappropriate .

Thank you Bob.

But now I was on my own and everything was clicking.

***

Let me introduce you to one of my very best friends that Volleyball brought me to. His name is Mitch Lehman and I was acquainted with him through a mutual friend at Sideout Sport, a Southern California manufacturer of Volleyball sportswear. Mitch was doing some consulting for Sideout and I met him at the Monrovia factory one afternoon. We hit it off immediately and I asked him if he wanted to sit in on a broadcast as my color commentator for a Hawaii broadcast I was going to do that night at Long Beach State. Mitch, grinning like a cat, immediately said yes and that night we worked together to send the broadcast back to Honolulu.

Hawaii and Long Beach State always made for a great radio match-up.

And as a color man, Mitch was better than good. We connected instantly and had an amazing chemistry on the air. A part-time beach Volleyball player himself, Mitch’s knowledge of the game and his relationships with the players dwarfed mine. He oozed Volleyball and knew every rule, regulation and nuisance of the sport and he really pushed me to be better. I immediately asked him to be part of all of the broadcasts I was doing and to join in on each pre-game show as “The Coach, Mitch Lehman” and on-mike friendship reflected the respect that we had for each other. Because the majority of the Hawaii Men’s and Wahine broadcasts were in Southern California, Mitch was available for all of the matches. It was a joy to work with him and we formed a bond of friendship that lasts through this day. I am so blessed that he is my friend.

It was sometimes a struggle to do many of the Wahine Volleyball broadcasts “solo”; that is Western Athletic Conference matches in places like Rice University in Houston, Texas. Iverson’s network covered my expenses but refused to do for Mitch, so I ended up doing them alone. Fortunately for me and I think to a great extent to the listeners, the Wahine would pound their opponents into the floor and we would be out of the gym in about one hour.

I will never forget one particular broadcast at UC San Diego.

Mitch and I drove down to this predominantly academic university for the broadcast of a Hawaii men’s match against the Tritons which ended (for them) in 45 merciful minutes. However, with all University of Hawaii radio broadcasts, you must fill in all of the time of each and every broadcast that are already sold and locked in. So, there Mitch and I were in a now empty gym, watching student workers sweeping up the floor and bantering away just to fill up the time. The post-game show lasted longer than the action on the court.

***

I’ve shared with you about the mania that is the University of Hawaii Volleyball. Now I have to introduce you to one of the most electrifying players ever to wear a Volleyball uniform. His name is Yuval Katz and he was the starting outside hitter for the Rainbows. UH head Coach Mike Wilton recruited Katz from Israel where he played on numerous club teams and after fulfilling his required military time for his nation, came to the Hawaii Volleyball program. Katz hit the islands like a tidal wave. There was never a more exciting team in recent Volleyball history that there was in the mid-1990’s with Katz leading the way. Fans at the UH Stan Sherriff Center Arena would wait for days to get one of their allotted tickets to see this Hawaii team play. It was beyond “rock concert” status as young 17 year olds would throw themselves all over the players and would pass out - all on live local Hawaii TV - whenever Katz would come onto the court.

I hate regret. I think it is a useless emotion. I think you should accept life the way it comes. But the one “regret” I have was never being allowed by Iverson to broadcast any of the Hawaii Men’s or Wahine broadcasts at home at the Stan Sherriff Center. Iverson didn't want to incur the expense of flying me out to Hawaii to do a home broadcast where he could get a local announcer to do it. It was understandable. But I dearly wanted to see what it was like to experience Hawaii Volleyball, just once, in Honolulu. For you see, Katz and the Rainbows were the #1 team in America and every time the team went to the US mainland, tens of thousands of people listened to every live broadcast that Mitch and I did.

Some people drink coffee for caffeine high.

Who needs that crap?

When Katz and the Rainbows suited up and played at UCLA and USC, I just put on the headphones and EXPLODED all over the radio. Mitch had to try and hold me back, eventually giving up and coming along for the ride. He and I were better than good as every spike, dig and block were instantly radiated back the 2,500 miles back to the Hawaii Islands like a metal slinky. The Rainbows pulverized every opponent they faced and upon returning back to Honolulu were greeted by thousands of fans that packed the pre-9/11 Honolulu International Airport.

I was still doing the league broadcasts and combined many of them with the Rainbow Sports Radio Network radio broadcasts. So, just once, I scheduled one league broadcast to originate from Honolulu. I wanted to see what it was like when Katz and the Rainbows were playing at home in the Stan Sherriff Center. It was incredible … unbelievable. Words cannot even come close to the level of excitement and love the local Hawaiians had for Yuval Katz. When the Rainbows came onto the court, the noise level was teeth jarring. I had seen the team a few days earlier in California and each of the players high fived me when they ran around the court for their warm-ups. I think they were hosting UC Irvine and handled the Anteaters mercilessly; like red meat to a hungry dog and won the match in a runaway.

Well, it finally came time for the NCAA National Championship at UCLA against the home-court Bruins. More than 5,000 insanely crazy Hawaii fans made the trip over from Honolulu and Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA Campus rocked. Mitch and I was at our very best, calling the match live on both radio networks as the see-saw battle waged between both ball clubs. The Rainbows made it to match point, serving for the NCAA National Championship only to fall to the Bruins by two points in the fifth and final game.

A tough loss for the Bows and for Katz who returned for just one more season. But it was never quite the same. The magic was gone. But my God was that fun.

More than a decade later, Mitch and I still remember that NCAA National Championship match-up and wonder “what if” …

***

So, it was with Mitch Lehman by my side, we broadcasting some 90 NCAA Volleyball matches a year. Also coming onto the scene was a new Women’s indoor league run by a self-styled millionaire named Gary Wyma called the NVA, the National Volleyball Association. It was a rag-tag, seat of the pants operation that Wyma personally funded, including paying me to put together a nascent radio package. So, Mitch and I saddled up for these broadcasts as well. The NVA league came and went bankrupt in two years but it put some money in Mitch and my pockets and more radio broadcasts to put on the resume.

But, then I had to ask, what‘s next? I always look forward to see what will be the next challenge on the horizon. Was I fated to broadcast Volleyball for the rest of my career? Was I going to be the “voice” of Volleyball forever? This is the question that I poised to my Dad one day when I called him at his home in Orem, Utah. He listened patiently but was ambiguous about the next challenge. He felt that as long as I was working, something good would come my way. It was then … in early 1995 that I started to ask myself … what about the Olympic Games? Why couldn't I broadcast the Olympic Games?

I must be nuts!

There is no way that I could broadcast the Olympics … at least that is what I told myself. You see, we humans are our own worst enemy. We will say to ourselves all the reasons why we can’t do this thing or that. But when you think about it, the only one saying it to me … was me. There was no one else telling me that I could not broadcast the Olympic Games, which was to be held in Atlanta the following summer.

And certainly no one in America had broadcast as many Volleyball matches on radio as I had.

***

So, I started formulating and executing a business plan to promote myself to the Westwood One Radio Network in Washington D.C. with the goal of being hired by the network as their “voice” of Olympic Volleyball.

First, I had to find out where to start.

I really had no idea.

I called a friend, Joel Blumberg, a sports engineer who was based in Newark, New Jersey. Joel had produced dozens of live sports broadcasts for Westwood and knew all of the sports guys at Westwood and said that he would introduce me to Larry Michael, Westwood Vice President of Sports as well as Executive Director Chris Castleberry. Joel was true to his word and two days later, I was on the phone introducing myself to Chris. In the world of sports radio in America, Chris Castleberry was better than very best, having worked as the executive producer for the Larry King radio show on the nationwide Mutual Radio Network, years before Larry King Live debuted on CNN. Chris produced every NCAA National Basketball Championships; major golf, tennis and football bowl games, as well as Notre Dame Football that Westwood One carried for a decade. We talked for a few minutes and Chris was gracious in accepting a tape cassette to review. He said that at the previous 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, Westwood One had hired Barry Landers, an ice hockey commentator to handle their Volleyball commentary and the network execs were none too pleased with the results.

Now I had my in. I Fed Exed a demo tape to Chris and then started a PR campaign to “drip” on Westwood One. All of the publicity that I was generating for the WIVA league broadcasts, as well as the Hawaii broadcasts, sent right to Christ Castleberry at his Westwood offices.

I was relentless.

I also flew out to Washington, at my expense, just to meet Chris and talk with him about working for him at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. I was not going to go away quietly in the night and after several months of making him crazy, Chris called me and offered me a contract.

I accepted immediately.