People I Interviewed In My TV Career

Last year I was watching the Duke-Georgia Tech basketball game, and when they mentioned Blue Devils star Kyle Singler was from Medford, Oregon my jaw dropped open for a second. I looked him up on Facebook and discovered he wasn't even BORN until 1987 - the year we pulled-up stakes in Medford and moved to Yuma, Arizona.


That got me thinking about the people I personally met - and interviewed - during my TV sportscasting and news reporting career. I decided to make a list - a partial list - in no particular order:

*Steve Young *Jim McMahon *Ty Detmer *Rob Morris *LaVell Edwards *Frank Arnold *Danny Ainge *Bobby Clampett *Jake Plummer *Vai Sikahema *Gordon Hudson *John Beck *Martina Navratilova *Jane Seymour (yes...THAT Jane Seymour...I still haven't completely recovered from the moment she smiled at me in Sun Valley)

*Chuck Yeager (first pilot to break the sound barrier - flying the X-1)

*Kareem Abdul-Jabbar *Magic Johnson *Julius Erving *Ken Griffey, Jr. *Tony Gwynn *Roberto Alomar *Neil Lomax *Gene Stallings *Napoleon McCallum *Sonny Sixkiller *Chuck Knox *Dave Krieg *Curt Warner *Steve Largent *Don James *John Kruk *Harry Caray*Adrian Dantley

*Sen. Dirk Kempthorne-ID *Gov. Cecil Andrus-ID *Mark McGwire *Tony LaRussa *Lute Olsen *John Thompson *Dale Brown *Bill Walton *Shaquille O' Neal *Harry Caray *Adrian Dantley *Darrell Griffith *Tommy Lasorda *Frank Layden *Benito Santiago (Nicole's personal favorite - LOL - ask her to explain)

*The Kingsmen (uhm...anyone ever heard of 'Louie, Louie'?)

*Pilots of the 366th TFW (the Gunfighter Squadron out of Mountain Home AFB. They were among the very FIRST fighter pilots to fly through the missiles and flak and Iraqi fighters into downtown Baghdad the first night of the Gulf War - the tip of America's sword which struck down Saddam Hussein. Their stories raised the hairs on the back of my neck and brought a lump to my throat - they were the very DEFINITION of 'patriot')

*Capt. Al Haynes, United 232 (the flight that cartwheeled into the ground in Sioux City, Iowa. His exceptional piloting skill saved 184 of the passengers and crew from a fireball and shredded DC-10) 

                                                                                  

*Fred Whittingham (yes...he went-out as a Ute but he was my HS football coach at Alhambra and my LB position coach at BYU when I walked-on after my mission. He truly was a 'player's coach'. Seriously one of the toughest men I have ever met in my life, from being one of a handful of survivors of the 1960 Cal State Poly team plane crash in Ohio which killed many of his football teammates to the New Orleans Saints to coaching at BYU and Utah. RIP, big Fred)

*Bobby Knight (I am, without hesitation, most proud of THIS interview, my absolute favorite of the thousands I did. It was an exclusive one-on-one when I tracked down Indiana at the Boise airport just as their charter flight was landing for the NCAA West Regionals. I was the ONLY reporter there. Can you say 'SCOOP'? I had the most colorful and volatile coach in NCAA history all to myself for about two minutes, was well-prepared, and knew how to NOT ask stupid, typical media questions. I must have done something right - Bobby didn't shred me or even frown)

I'll stop here - that was just off the top of my head.

For anyone still reading at this point, I was truly BLESSED to have a career I LOVED for 20+ years. Like I always said, I got paid to play for a living.