To call Pat Summerall understated behind the microphone may be one of the greatest understatements of all time.
Few play-by-play men in the history of sports broadcasting had such an impact or enjoyed such popularity employing such an economy of words.
Told early in his broadcasting career by CBS Sports president Bill MacPhail he never would criticize Summerall for speaking too little, Summerall turned succinctness into an art form.
It was that quality that made him the perfect complement to the bombastic, stream of consciousness John Madden with whom he was paired for 21 NFL seasons on both CBS and Fox.
REUTERS
Pat Summerall
George Allen Summerall, the kicker on the Giants team that lost the 1958 NFL Championship Game to the Colts in what has been billed the "Greatest Game Ever Played" and who went on to a 41-year career in the broadcast booth, died yesterday at a Dallas hospital. He was 82 and was recovering from surgery for a broken hip.
Summerall was part of network television broadcasts for 16 Super Bowls and was involved in 10 others on radio. His last championship game was for FOX on Feb. 3, 2002, also his last game with Madden.
"He was so solid and a good friend and a real pro," Madden told the Los Angeles Times yesterday. "He had that thing of, in one sentence he could say what would take others two or three paragraphs to say. He'd hit it right on the head. That was why he was so great to work with.
"In all the time I worked with him, we never had one argument. That was because of him. I'm not the easiest person to get along with, but he was."
Summerall was also CBS' lead voice on golf and tennis, working 27 Masters and 20 U.S. Tennis Opens. But he came upon his broadcasting career almost by accident.
While rooming with Giants quarterback Charlie Conerly, Summerall, who played four of his 10 NFL seasons with the Giants, answered the phone one day. WCBS Radio was looking for a replacement for Frank Gifford, who was moving from radio to local television. The station was trying to set up an audition with Conerly.
Hearing Summerall's deep voice, the caller asked if he played football and whether he would like to audition. Summerall said yes and soon he was the station's sports director. The following year he joined CBS Sports as a football analyst.
He teamed with Tom Brookshier on CBS for six seasons until the network broke them up because the hard-partying pair were having too good a time. After the 1992 Masters, friends, colleagues and family members staged an intervention. Summerall spent five weeks at the Betty Ford Center and never drank again.
"I had no intention of quitting, I was having too good a time,'' Summerall once said. "The prescribed stay at Betty Ford is 28 days. They kept me 33 because I was so angry at the people who did the intervention, the first five days didn't do me any good.''
But he also acknowledged his rehab stay saved his life. It was Summerall, who would have a liver transplant in 2004, who convinced good friend Mickey Mantle to attend Betty Ford.
His final call during Super Bowl XXXVI between the Patriots and Rams was vintage Summerall. No frills. Just facts.
''It's right down the pipe," he said. "Adam Vinatieri. No time on the clock. And the Patriots have won Super Bowl XXXVI. Unbelievable."
dburke@nypost.com
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