Pat Summerall
George Allen "Pat" Summerall was an American professional football player and television sportscaster who worked for CBS, Fox, and ESPN. In addition to football, he announced major golf and tennis events. Summerall announced 16 Super Bowls on network television, 26 Masters Tournaments, and 21 US Opens. He contributed to 10 Super Bowl broadcasts on CBS Radio as a pregame host or analyst.
Summerall played football for the Arkansas Razorbacks and then in the National Football League from 1952 through 1961. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions and played with Bobby Layne. His best playing years were as a kicker with the New York Giants. In 1962 he joined CBS as a color commentator. He worked with Tom Brookshier and then John Madden on NFL telecasts for CBS and Fox. Retiring after the 2002 NFL season, he occasionally announced games, especially those near his Texas home.
Summerall was named the National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association in 1977, and inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1994. That year, he also received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1999. The Pat Summerall Award has been presented since 2006 during Super Bowl weekend at the NFL's headquarters hotel "to a deserving recipient who through their career has demonstrated the character, integrity and leadership both on and off the job that the name Pat Summerall represents."
Football career
High school
At Columbia High School, Lake City, Florida, Summerall played football, tennis, baseball, and basketball. Basketball was his favorite sport; he was recognized as an All-State selection in basketball and football. He was inducted into the FHSAA Hall of Fame and was later named to the FHSAA's All-Century Team.College
Summerall played college football from 1949 to 1951 at the University of Arkansas, where he played defensive end, tight end, and placekicker for the Arkansas Razorbacks. He graduated in 1953 majoring in education and later earned a master's degree in Russian history, according to ESPN.Professional
Summerall spent ten years as a professional football player in the National Football League, primarily as a placekicker. The Detroit Lions drafted Summerall as a fourth-round draft choice in the 1952 NFL draft. Summerall played the pre-season with the Lions before breaking his arm, which ended his season after playing just two games for the Lions. After that season, he was traded to the Chicago Cardinals where he played from 1953 to 1957 and the New York Giants from 1958 to 1961, during which he was a part of The Greatest Game Ever Played. His best professional year statistically was 1959, when Summerall scored 90 points on 30-for-30 extra-point kicking and 20-for-29 field goal kicking.Summerall's most memorable professional moment may well have been at the very end of the December 14, 1958 regular-season finale between his Giants and the Cleveland Browns at Yankee Stadium. Going into the game, the Browns were in first place in the Eastern Conference, holding a one-game lead over the second-place Giants. And the great Jim Brown was on the Cleveland roster. In that era, there was no overtime during regular-season games, standings ties were broken by a playoff, and there were no wild-card teams. This meant that only the Eastern Conference champion would qualify for the NFL Championship Game to be held two weeks later, and it meant that the Giants had to win just to force a tiebreaker playoff game. The Browns, on the other hand, needed only a tie to clinch the Eastern championship. As time was running out, the Giants and Browns were tied, 10–10, a situation that, as indicated, favored the Browns. The Giants got barely into Cleveland territory, then sent out Summerall to try for a tiebreaking 49-yard field goal. To add to the drama, there were swirling winds and snow. Summerall, a straight-ahead kicker, made the field goal with just two minutes to play, keeping the Giants alive for another week.
The Giants' offensive coach, Vince Lombardi, was against sending Summerall in, then gleefully greeted Summerall as he came off the field, "You son of a bitch, you can’t kick it that far!" Sports Illustrated ran the story as one of its primary articles the next week, with a leading photograph showing the football heading between the uprights through the snow. His last professional game was the 1961 NFL Championship Game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Lombardi's Green Bay Packers defeated Summerall's Giants, 37–0, holding New York to just six first downs.
The urban legend was his nickname became "Pat" because of the abbreviation for "point after touchdown" that a field-goal kicker was credited for in a game summary. But in a 1997 Dallas Morning News story, Summerall said after his parents divorced, he was taken in by an aunt and uncle who had a son named Mike. "My aunt and uncle just started calling me Pat to go with their Mike", Summerall would say, referencing frequently named characters in Irish jokes told during that time.
NFL career statistics
Regular season
Postseason
Broadcasting career
In the early 1960s, Summerall was the morning host on WCBS radio in New York City. He left the job when WINS went all-news in 1965. He also co-hosted the syndicated NFL Films series This Week in Pro Football in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Summerall was also associated with a production company in Dallas from about 1998 through 2005 which was called Pat Summerall Productions. He was featured in and hosted various production shows, such as Summerall Success Stories and Champions of Industry. These qualified production segments would air on the Fox News Channel and later, CNN Headline News. During the mid-1990s, Summerall hosted the "Summerall-Aikman" Cowboys report with quarterback Troy Aikman. Summerall served as the host of Sports Stars of Tomorrow and Future Phenoms, two nationally syndicated high school sports shows based out of Fort Worth, Texas. Following their dismissal of announcer Harry Caray in 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team considered hiring Summerall to be their new radio voice.CBS Sports
NFL
After retiring from football, Summerall was hired by CBS Sports in 1962 to work as a color commentator on the network's NFL coverage. CBS initially paired Summerall with Chris Schenkel on Giants games; three years later he shifted to working with Jim Gibbons on Washington Redskins games. In 1968, after CBS abandoned the practice of assigning dedicated announcing crews to particular NFL teams, Summerall ascended to the network's lead national crew, pairing with Jack Buck and then Ray Scott. For the postgame coverage of the very first Super Bowl at the end of the 1966 season, the trophy presentation ceremony was handled by CBS' Summerall and NBC's George Ratterman.In 1969, Summerall took part in NBC's coverage of Super Bowl III. NBC used Summerall to provide an "NFL perspective" on the coverage. This was due in part to the fact that NBC was at the time, the network television provider of the American Football League. In return, for CBS Radio's coverage of Super Bowls I, II and IV, they used Tom Hedrick, normally the radio voice of the Kansas City Chiefs, to provide an "AFL perspective" for their coverage.
Midway through the 1974 NFL season, CBS shifted Summerall from color to play-by-play. The network's #1 NFL crew now consisted of Summerall and analyst Tom Brookshier. The Summerall-Brookshier duo worked three Super Bowls together. Summerall, Brookshier, NFL on CBS producer Bob Wussler, and Miami Dolphins owner Joe Robbie appeared as themselves during the 1977 film Black Sunday, which was filmed on location at the Orange Bowl in Miami during Super Bowl X.
In 1981, Summerall was teamed with former Oakland Raiders coach John Madden, a pairing that would last for 22 seasons on two networks and become one of the most well-known partnerships in television sportscasting history. Summerall was initially opposed, preferring his longtime broadcast partner Brookshier, but CBS executives thought Brookshier and Summerall working together exacerbated their respective issues with alcohol. Summerall and Madden were first teamed on a November 25, 1979 broadcast of a Minnesota Vikings–Tampa Bay Buccaneers game due to Brookshier having a family commitment. While the two were paired on CBS, they called Super Bowls XVI, XVIII, XXI, XXIV, and XXVI together.
In contrast to John Madden's lively, verbose persona, Summerall continued the traditionally minimalist delivery of his predecessor as CBS's main NFL announcer, Scott, allowing the pictures and his baritone-like voice to tell the story. For example, he usually called a Joe Montana to Jerry Rice touchdown pass with simple calls like "Montana......Rice.... Touchdown!"
His last game alongside Madden for CBS was the 1993 NFC Championship Game.
Other CBS Sports assignments
Summerall also covered other events such as ABA for CBS during this period. Through 1966, he hosted a morning drive-time music/talk program for WCBS-AM radio in New York.Summerall also broadcast PGA Tour golf tournaments on CBS, including the Masters Tournament, as well as the US Open of tennis, during his tenure at CBS with Tony Trabert, and he was the play-by-play announcer for the 1974 NBA Finals, CBS' first season broadcasting the NBA on CBS. In 1975, Summerall hosted the Pan American Games in Mexico, and in 1976 he teamed with Tom Brookshier to call some heavyweight boxing matches for CBS.
Summerall broadcast his first Masters in 1968, when he anchored the coverage at hole 18. In 1983, Summerall replaced Vin Scully in the 18th hole tower role. Summerall's broadcast partner during this period was Ken Venturi.
From 1969–1973, Summerall broadcast CBS' National Invitation Tournament coverage with Don Criqui. In 1985, Summerall once again called college basketball, working NCAA men's tournament games for CBS with Larry Conley.
In 1970, Summerall and then-Boston Bruins' TV announcer Don Earle did a short postgame segment from inside the team's dressing room at the end of CBS' coverage of the fourth game of the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals. WSBK-38, the Bruins' TV flagship at the time, simulcast the CBS coverage and did a longer post-game locker-room segment after CBS' coverage ended.
Summerall also called at least one Professional Bowlers Association event, which was the 1975 Brunswick World Open.
On April 15, 1987, Summerall did color commentary alongside Steve Stone for a Chicago Cubs-Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game on WGN-TV. This was during time period in which the Cubs' normal television announcer, Harry Caray, was recovering from a stroke. Thus, for about the first two months of the 1987 season, WGN featured a series of celebrity guest announcers on game telecasts while Caray recuperated.
He also broadcast the US Open Tennis Tournament for CBS with Tony Trabert for 25 years.
Summerall's last on-air assignment for CBS Sports was the 1994 Masters Tournament.