The last time CBS presented a Super Bowl pregame show, the site was an indoor stadium, the program was scheduled for two hours, the San Francisco 49ers were the NFC representative and Brent Musburger was the host.
Two years later, CBS again is presenting a Super Bowl pregame show,
”Super Bowl XXVI Today” (2:30 p.m. Jan. 26, WBBM-Ch. 2), and the only other thing in common is that the site again is an indoor stadium.
The 49ers didn`t make the playoffs this year, the program is scheduled for 2 1/2 hours (some sort of TV record) and Greg Gumbel is the host.
”I`m excited at the prospect,” says Gumbel, who joined CBS part-time three years ago. ”It`s a pretty significant time. But it`s a logical progression and I`m looking forward to it.”
That`s the same Greg Gumbel who cut his studio teeth anchoring the weekend sports at WMAQ-Ch. 5 in the `70s; the same Greg Gumbel who hates to answer to ”Yo, Bryant”; and the same Greg Gumbel who was entrusted by CBS executives two seasons ago with hosting ”NFL Today” after Musburger was fired in 1990.
With Musburger`s departure, CBS Sports executive producer Ted Shaker gambled on a complete makeover for ”NFL Today,” whose ratings had been slipping to the onrushing ”NFL Live” at NBC.
In addition to Musburger`s departing, Irv Cross was reassigned, Will McDonough joined NBC and Dick Butkus was let go. In their place, Shaker added Terry Bradshaw, Lesley Visser and Pat O`Brien. And then he crossed his fingers.
While Shaker wouldn`t admit it at the time, he now says: ”It felt like a significant gamble. I felt out there on a limb. I`m really pleased the way that show has grown in a very short time. There were difficult decisions made to cut loose a show that had been a standard-bearer for 15 years. A lot of the notions turned out to be pretty good.”
The notions: That Bradshaw would bring a zaniness (and a sense of humor)
the program previously lacked, O`Brien a deft touch on features and Visser a reporter`s angle.
But it was Gumbel, who had toiled many years in the shadow of younger brother Bryant`s successes at NBC, that was Shaker`s biggest notion.
”Terry`s a hot personality,” says Shaker. ”He kind of lights it up. Greg`s kind of cool. Therefore, they complement each other. If they were both the same kinds of personalities, they might knock you out of your chair. When Terry gets out there, Greg knows how to nicely get him back.”
(Gumbel finally gets his chance to go one-on-one with Bryant when Greg co-anchors the morning portion of CBS` Winter Olympics coverage, opposite NBC`s ”Today” show, which his brother anchors. ”After all, I worked with Jane Pauley (at Channel 5) before Bryant did,” Greg says with a laugh.)
The parrying between Gumbel and Bradshaw on the set is the same as off. They needle each other constantly.
”We go out to be ourselves,” Gumbel says in a joint interview with Bradshaw at the CBS Sports studios in New York. ”We don`t go out on the set to put on airs and be someone we`re not. Anybody who knows us will testify the way we are on the air is exactly the way we are on Thursday night or Friday night or when we talk to each other on the phone Tuesday afternoon. It`s not what we intend to do out there. It`s just the way we are. It`s indicative of our relationship.”
It`s a relationship that`s pretty incredible when you think about their backgrounds: Bradshaw, the good ol` country boy from Louisiana; Gumbel, the guy who grew up on the South Side of Chicago (and remains a White Sox fan).
”This isn`t what I started out to be,” says Gumbel of his current status. ”I honestly thought at one time that doing the news in Chicago was the be-all and end-all. It was the town I grew up in. They knew me. I was real happy there until two things happened-people made it not pleasant to work there anymore, and somebody made me a better offer.”
That somebody was a fledgling ESPN, which rescued Gumbel from fighting WMAQ-Ch. 5 management over the length of sports segments. After 5 1/2 years at ESPN, Gumbel joined Madison Square Garden Network in 1986 as a studio host and play-by-play man on Knicks games.
”Of all those things, I was happy in the job I was doing until something better came along,” Gumbel explains.
Gumbel was ”pleasantly surprised” when Shaker took him out to lunch one day and offered him the role as ”NFL Today” host. ”Then he said I`d be working with Bradshaw, and I said, `Noooooo!”`
”He wanted Dan Jiggetts,” says Bradshaw with his usual hearty laugh,
”but they wanted a white guy on the set. So here I am.”
”He`s the P.T.,” retorts Gumbel, ”the proper token.”
Gumbel doesn`t hide his feelings about race and the electronic media.
”I`ve never made any bones about the fact (WMAQ) hired me because I`m black,” he says. ”And the same at ESPN. But I don`t think that was the case at MSG or was the case here (at CBS). It`s one thing to be hired for a particular reason, but you do have to perform once you get there.”
And perform is something Gumbel has done the past two seasons, much to the admiration of Bradshaw.
”The first year, we got better as we went along,” says the former Steelers quarterback. ”This year, we started off ahead of where we ended up last year. And now we`re in a comfort zone. We`re not nervous. It`s gotten freer. People at home must see that we enjoy working with each other.”
”I`ve never worked with anyone I didn`t like,” says Gumbel. ”I can`t imagine what that would be like. I can only imagine it must be very unpleasant and you wouldn`t enjoy coming to work every day. But I`ve never had more fun than doing this job. And we do have fun together.
”We were both nervous last year. We were kind of feeling our way along. We were going out there every week hoping not to make a mistake. We`ve past that this year, and we can be bolder.”
And more willing to jump on each other`s mistakes.
Bradshaw: ”Ask him the name of the New Orleans Saints quarterback.”
Gumbel: ”Baby Hair Bear. … He lives for my mistakes.”
”Greg`s a very competent broadcaster,” says Shaker, who first hired Gumbel part-time in 1988 to work with Ken Stabler on NFL games. ”He can sit there and take a variety of halftimes and make it work smoothly. He makes the others with him look good. He listens to the people around him. He`s allowed the other people around him to grow so that the broadcast itself is strong.” One of those other people is O`Brien, like Gumbel an alumnus of Channel 5. The two used to share weekend duties at the station.
”Just like a football team, a lot of it is chemistry,” O`Brien says.
”You could put all kinds of talented people together, and sometimes you just don`t have the chemistry. That`s why shows are canceled; that`s why movies don`t make it. Ted Shaker`s put together a group that if you had a chemistry set, you`d say this was an experiment that worked.”
Just as Shaker gambled it would.
