Usually during the Christmas season I give you a column on some great Christmas gifts or do my hypothetical “Christmas gifts for coaches and players”.
It looks like we are getting ready to have a white Christmas. In any event we are going to have some cold weather and it will be a good time to stay inside, stay warm and watch some television or get on your computer and watch YouTube of sports from a different era.
If you are looking for something to watch during this Christmas and New Year’s season, try to find some old sports shows that might bring back some memories of a bygone era in sports entertainment.
It is hard for my younger readers to appreciate this as they are getting ready to experience a Christmas weekend full of NBA games and NFL games.
Not too long ago (during my childhood) an NBA game was a rare event, watching University of Kentucky basketball meant you were watching it taped delay late at night and the highlight of your weekend was probably watching either Lawrence Welk or Chris Schenkel and the Professional Bowlers Tour.
So what are some old television shows you can find to bring back how sports used to exist?
THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN
The American Sportsman was a television series that ran from approximately 1965 to 1986 on ABC.
It was a show that featured many famous persons from the movies, television, politics or sports who would be involved as a celebrity participating in a hunting or fishing trip.
For me the most recognizable host was Curt Gowdy. Gowdy was a play-by-play man in college basketball and some NFL games but gained the most notoriety in my mind as being the host for The American Sportsman.
There were numerous celebrities who engaged in these outdoor activities including Bing Crosby, Andy Griffith, Larry Hagman and Red Fox.
Two of my favorite shows were the ones that featured one of the stars of the rock group that was my hero, Three Dog Night. Cory Wells was the lead singer in Three Dog Night and he appeared twice on the show. In the first show he pursued brown trout.
In his second appearance on the show he was on a canoe trip fly fishing for small mouth bass in Maine with the host and a close friend of his, Curt Gowdy.
WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS
A Saturday afternoon staple for many older adults during their younger years was Wide World of Sports. This series aired on ABC from April 29, 1961 to January 3, 1988. It was hosted by Jim McKay.
The introductory phrase when the show came on has become a saying that will last a generation or lifetime: “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports …… the thrill of victory …… and the agony of defeat …… the human drama of athletic competition”.
The phrase “agony of defeat” is best remembered because of ski jumper Vinko Bogataj of Yugoslavia. To this day I cannot watch ski jumping in the Olympics without thinking of him and that scene from Wide World of Sports.
Unlike today where you have the National Football League network, the Major League Baseball network, National Basketball Association, and the Golf Channel, Wide World of Sports featured some obscure sports.
Among the sports that I remember watching on the show were Demolition Derby, Surfing, Ice Skaters Who Barrel Jumped, and Mexican Cliff Diving.
You might see the Harlem Globetrotters one week on the same show that you saw rodeo and NASCAR races.
It carried unique sporting events to say the least.
MUTUAL OF OMAHA’S WILD KINGDOM
Your weekend of sports and Lawrence Welk was not complete until you finished it off by watching Marlin Perkins as the host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
This show ran primarily from 1963 to 1988. The format of the show featured Perkins narrating off camera and seemingly from a studio about wild animals and the activities they were engaged in.
The show also featured Jim Fowler who seemingly was always out in the wild and somewhat at risk with the wild animals while Marlin Perkins was back in the studio.
I hope you stay warm this Christmas weekend and maybe you can look back at some of these nostalgic sports shows from the past. I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas.
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