Walsh, Trying New Air Attack, Has Hit Some Rough Spots

Bill Walsh, who will work the Raiders’ game at Denver Sunday, will be on a telecast coming into Los Angeles for the first time since he was hired as NBC’s top football commentator.

“I think I’d rather be going into Fargo, N.D.,” he said on the phone from San Francisco.

Walsh, of course, was kidding, but entering Week 3 of the National Football League season, he really isn’t too sure about this broadcasting business.

Asked how things are going, Walsh said: “I can’t give you a lot of bravado, at least not yet. Maybe at the end of this first season I can look back and say, ‘Yeah, everything is great.’ But I can’t say that now.”

If it sounds as though Walsh, who coached the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl victories during the 1980s, has been humbled a bit by a career change, that does seems to be the case.

Walsh worked six practice telecasts, five with partner Dick Enberg, during the exhibition season.

Then, the first week of the regular season, he worked Chicago-Cincinnati. He offered some strong opinions, but at times he talked over Enberg and once, early in the game, gave the wrong score.

“Once I realized what I did, I was panicked about how I would get out of this,” Walsh said. “I could feel the beads of sweat on my forehead.”

Enberg got him out, and Walsh made light of the mistake. “By the way, Dick, I just figured out the score,” he said on the air. “I didn’t know where the scoreboard was.”

Last Sunday, Walsh and Enberg worked the Rams’ game against Indianapolis, which, because of the NFL’s blackout policy, wasn’t shown in Los Angeles.

“My mechanics were better but my substance not as good as the first week,” Walsh said.

He made his biggest faux pas when Jim Everett set a Ram record by completing 14 straight passes.

Enberg: “The NFL record for most consecutive passes completed is 22. Do you know who the quarterback was?”

Walsh: “It has to be Ken Anderson.”

Enberg: “No. How about Joe Montana?”

Walsh: “Oh, that’s right. It shows you I’m slipping.”

Enberg: “That happens once you get into the broadcast booth.”

Although Walsh is confident about his knowledge of the game and his ability to communicate the technical aspects of it, he concedes that he has weaknesses.

“What I need to work on is the banter with Dick,” Walsh said. “I need to come back with more snappy comments.

“In this area, I may never reach the level of a John Madden or a Dan Dierdorf, but I can improve as I get more comfortable.”

Since Walsh left the 49ers, some of the players have criticized him for his austere and autocratic ways.

Of the switch to George Seifert as coach, Montana said: “It’s like driving down the freeway and you open the window and get a breath of fresh air.”

Said Walsh: “At first, I was hurt by some of the comments, but I think it was a case of players closing ranks and showing unity toward their new coach.

“Closing ranks and showing unity is a philosophy I preached, and ironically, I was a victim of my own philosophy.

“I have talked to most of the players involved. . . . Joe and I talk frequently.”

The NFL, which has a strict blackout policy because it believes telecasts hurt attendance, should take a look at the college ranks.

Even though ABC will televise Saturday’s USC-UCLA “doubleheader” locally, a crowd of 70,000 is expected at the Coliseum for USC-Ohio State and another 75,000 is expected at the Rose Bowl for UCLA-Michigan.

The ABC announcers will be Gary Bender and Dick Vermeil on the 12:30 p.m. USC-Ohio State game, with Cheryl Miller handling sideline duties, and Keith Jackson and Bob Griese on the 5 p.m. UCLA-Michigan game, with Mike Adamle on the sidelines.

Being a sideline reporter is sort of a thankless, non-glory job.

“The toughest part is dodging players as they run out of bounds,” Miller cracked.

Adamle said: “The key is to enhance the telecast without intruding. If I get on the air three or four times, then I’ve had a great day.”

Some others who have worked as sideline reporters have fancied themselves as comedians, but it has never worked.

Adamle said: “I’m not out there to audition for David Letterman.”

Said Miller: “You have to keep everything short and sweet, 10 to 15 seconds. And if it’s a real good game, you won’t see me at all.”

ABC first used sideline reporters in 1974, hiring two college students. One was Don Tollefson of Stanford, the other Jim Lampley, a North Carolina graduate student.

Fortunately, ABC last season scrapped those terrible halftime interviews with the coaches, the ones in which the reporter would grab a coach, yell a question, and the coach would yell something back and run off.

“Getting rid of those was a good idea,” Adamle said. “They were meaningless. The coaches never had anything to say.”

Miller, former USC and Olympic basketball star, is well known in the Southland.

But some people might not recall that Adamle was a pretty good football player.

A running back at Northwestern, Adamle, 39, was the Big Ten’s most valuable player in 1970. He played six years in the NFL, two each with the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Jets and the Chicago Bears.

In 1975, he started four games in the backfield with a rookie named Walter Payton. “That’s something I can tell the grandkids,” he said.

Adamle was a sports anchorman for the ABC affiliate in Chicago until last December and now works full-time for the network. He is also the co-host of the syndicated show, “American Gladiators.”

When Adamle was at the Coliseum last year for the USC-Oklahoma game, he spotted a girl he dated five years earlier in Chicago, Michelle Stringini, who moved to Los Angeles to get into the entertainment business.

The romance was rekindled, and the two were married last month.

TV-Radio Notes

The CBS pro football game Sunday at 10 a.m. is San Francisco at Philadelphia, with Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw reporting. . . . A good way to start an NFL Sunday is with ESPN’s “NFL GameDay,” at 8:30 a.m. It’s a one-hour pregame show that is more thorough than the half-hour shows on NBC and CBS. . . . A good way to finish an NFL Sunday is with ESPN’s “NFL PrimeTime” at 4:15 p.m., followed at 5:15 by “NFL Dream Season.” Sunday’s featured “Dream Season” game has the 1976 Raiders facing the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs.

Channel 5 will carry the Angels’ 10:30 a.m. games at Cleveland Saturday and Sunday. With Bob Starr busy with UCLA and Ram radio broadcasts, Joe Torre will do the play-by-play. Reggie Jackson will again be the fill-in commentator Saturday, with Johnny Bench taking over that job Sunday. A Channel 5 spokesman said the station has been getting a lot of favorable reaction to Jackson’s work. . . . With the Angels idle Monday, KMPC will carry the Oakland broadcast of the Athletics’ home game with Texas that night. . . . The USA network is offering live coverage of the Ryder Cup matches at Sutton Coldfield, England, this weekend, beginning at 8 a.m. today and Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday. The announcers are Joel Meyers, Gary McCord, Ben Wright, Don Wade and Jim Simpson.

Good news for cable subscribers who get WGN. The Chicago station that carries the Cubs will also show 25 Bull games this season and 45 White Sox games next year. . . . The new face on ESPN’s late-night “Sports-Center” is Carolyn Burns, who joined the cable network from San Francisco’s KRON-TV. . . . Norm Wiles, the Pasadena fireman who won the privilege of announcing an inning of a Dodger telecast on SportsChannel as part of the Think Blue Week promotion in June, is announcing high school football for a San Dimas cable company. . . . Brian Quinn, Loyola Marymount’s athletic director, will be a guest panelist on Channel 2’s “At Issue” Sunday at 7:30 a.m. to discuss Propositions 42 and 48.