Reflecting on 25 Years in TV Sports

by Ron Futrell @RonFutrell


The news was not unexpected, but still mildly painful.


The TV station where I had anchored sports and news for 25 years was dropping its sports department. Anchors will now read the sports with the same passion they do a hatchet murder, or a panda being born at the local zoo, and the viewers will get used to it (please pronounce Mark Teixeira's name right.) Perhaps they will.


Certainly, media is changing and some have called this a trend in the business. Consultants (who are usually failed news directors) have told us for years they want to attract females and since they believe women do not like sports, they must lessen the importance of sports, or kill it altogether. You could argue against that premise (which I did) until you were Dodger Blue in the face, but you would never win that argument and eventually management will find somebody who would just shut up and fill the three-minute segment (cut to 2:30 if weather went long.)


The news of removing the sports department did cause me to reflect on more than 2 decades of covering sports in Las Vegas and developing a bond with this community that will never be broken. It's been 4 years since I've done full time news on TV, but I still have people come up to me and think I'm the sports guy. "Hey, good job last night on the sports." I usually smile and say thanks.


I feel fortunate to have covered big-time sports during some great times in Las Vegas. I covered the careers of Randall Cunningham, Andre Agassi, Greg Maddux, Mike Tyson and many others. There were the great boxing events with Hagler, Hearns, Leonard, and Duran. I got to cover the rise of NASCAR and the UFC in Las Vegas, and was green-side for Tiger Woods' first win on the PGA Tour. The first month I was in Las Vegas I covered Kareem Abdul Jabbar setting the all-time NBA scoring record at the Thomas and Mack. Whew! Nice way to break-in back in April 1984. I was no Hunter S. Thompson, but covering the Mint 400 in the glory days of off-road racing was a dirty job long before the days of "Dirty Jobs." I was fortunate to cover World Series', Super Bowls, and NBA Finals.


Certainly, the rise and fall of UNLV basketball was a story that few got to report on up-close. 3 Final Fours in 5 years and then the internal struggle where a university president worked covertly to use the media to remove a coach (Jerry Tarkanian) because he did not have the courage to fire him. Who can forget "Cam Scam" when university officials put a camera in an air conditioning duct in the North Gym to try to catch a violation? I am most proud of covering this story straight up and honestly and my commentaries have stood the test of time. Nothing united this community more than Rebel Basketball, nothing tore it apart worse than the subsequent battles. Those were big, historic stories from 20 years ago that are still being talked about today. Often sports was called upon to lead newscasts because the stories were that big.


What I enjoyed most was the time I spent at local high schools and ball fields covering the youth of this valley and getting to know them through their sports exploits. Sure, it was fun interviewing future NFL star Steven Jackson as he barreled over opponents at Eldorado High, but doing the first, and likely the only interview ever with a Bonanza High tennis player was always rewarding. My former station let me cover grass-roots local sports unlike any other station in town and I will always appreciate that and it had great rewards.


Occasionally we did some serious journalism. There was the time a UNLV Athletic Director was using racist talk in open staff meetings. I uncovered the story and "broke" the story. Other media outlets followed but we reported this story first and did it under the risk of legal action. We were right and we broke a story that needed to be told. 


We made a lot of money with our sports department. I was trusted to produce and host hour-long shows that were highly profitable. We did NASCAR and IRL race shows, Thunder hockey shows, UNLV shows and there was the local sports show we did for 5 years following Monday Night Football, titled Monday Night Quarterback. How about this show from the late 80's that we did from Hawaii introducing a UNLV basketball team in embryo that would later win a National Championship?Aloha Rebels. These were the combined efforts of a lot of people who had passion in the projects. They were a lot of work, and a lot of fun and I believe were the essence of what a good sports department does.

What the future brings with local TV sports is hard to say. If media is one thing, it is chaning. UNLV basketball is making a comeback and Dave Rice is on his way to returning this program to national prominence. Las Vegas will have a major league professional sports team before this decade is out and viewers will want to hear from somebody who knows these sports. I thank my former station for giving me the resources and trusting me to cover sports as it deserved to be. It's also my opinion local TV news viewers (male and female) will seek stations that give them sports with flair, fun and accuracy. I'm guessing consultants don't want to hear me say that anymore.  

Iron Mike is Back

by Ron Futrell @RonFutrell

What Mike Tyson did throughout much of his boxing career, he is now doing on stage.

Punch, jab, and throw a devastating upper cut.

“I’m still afraid of him, and he’s dead,” Tyson on his mentor Cus D’Amato.

I went into Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth at the MGM Grand without expectations. I covered Mike’s career in Las Vegas from start to finish and found him both endearing and difficult. The “bipolar” news from years ago was no shock to me. I could interview Mike one day and he would invite my boys to watch his workouts at Johnny Tocco’s Ringside Gym (which he did,) and the next time he would lash out at my questions and call me a “smart ass” (which he did-and I was.)

Unlike others, I was not really surprised at Tyson’s ability to pull this off. I had seen a preview of this performance years earlier. In the late 80’s before a fight at the Las Vegas Hilton, Tyson invited the media to his hotel room for interviews. It was a different environment than a news conference and Tyson was much more comfortable. He sat there for an hour or so and talked boxing history. Before that, I was not aware of how much Mike had made himself a student of the sport, and I certainly had no idea how he could entertain a handful of crotchety writers and cynical TV guys. A sign of things to come.

“When I fought in this town it was shut down, it was a hoe-asis,” Tyson on fighting in Las Vegas.

Tyson speaks openly and honestly about his career, his many successes and his many mistakes. I guess the mistakes are always the most entertaining.

The shocking loss to Buster Douglas in Japan (Tyson was a 36-1 favorite) was due to Mike having sex early and often with Japanese maids that stopped by to “clean” his hotel room, so he says. On this one, I would’ve advised Tyson to look at the career of Marvin Hagler, who said he swore off sex for 6 weeks before a fight because it made his legs weak and he wanted to hate his opponent for keeping him away from his wife. Even if Mike knew the Hagler stories, it doesn’t seem he would’ve listened anyway.

“I never knew I had just met the devil,” Tyson on his alignment with Don King.

Perhaps Tyson’s biggest problem back then was his association with Don King, which he clearly acknowledges. Many of us in the media could see this trouble coming. I was outside the Indiana prison in 1995 on a cool morning in March when we were doing live coverage of Tyson’s release. Everybody was waiting to see who would pick Tyson up after his 3 years behind bars. There was a groan, but no surprise when the inverted mop-top of King emerged from the black limo to head inside the facility to pick up Indiana’s most famous inmate. From that point on Tyson's career fell faster than Marvis Frazier after the uppercut.

“She’s gonna use this show to re-launch her career,” Tyson on Robin Givens.

At times Tyson talks softly and quickly and is hard to understand, but those are the times when you get the impression that he is going off script and those are the best parts of the show.

Yes, he talks about the Ear Bite Fight, 1997 against Evander Holyfield, a fight that took place in the same casino as the current performance. He uses the same excuse he used that night; that he was being head butted by Evander (which he was) and that since he was in a fight, he just decided to take it to the next level. As crazy as that fight and that night was, it is amazing how Tyson has turned this around. He can laugh and joke about it now, in fact, Evander even came to one of his shows and heard him talk about it. Yes, I was there that night as well and remember when the Fight of the Century became the Bite of the Century. Just another chapter in Tyson’s recovery. In this case, Mike tries to play the victim, but for the most part, he takes blame for the bad things in his life.

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Tyson on his drug rehab.

Certainly, much of the Mike Tyson story has been written, discussed, covered and examined, but after watching him perform for an hour and a half, you get the impression that there is much more ahead. He talks about his children as a loving father and as somebody who is involved in their lives. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I hope it is, and I want to believe it is.

“I don’t deserve to be their father,” Tyson on his children.

Through it all, I was happy to see Tyson make this leap and succeed on stage without an opponent that he could clobber, or eat for lunch. For much of the show it’s him and the audience. Telling stories, sharing tales, and feeling the emotion that a life like this brings.

“The way you fight your fights is the way you live your life,” Cus to Tyson.

Perhaps it’s the fighter in all of us that wants to see him succeed.