Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [16]
I saw pictures of him with Arnold Palmer and Bob Hope, and at first I thought, how did this guy meet all these people? But Getty Oil was a big thing. And he was their outside man. We became good friends, but we didn’t socialize together. I had a lot of respect for him and his business ability. He was taking on a lot of responsibility, throwing a lot of the company’s dough at this thing.
DICK EBERSOL:
The guy Stu was talking to said I was absolutely wrong, too young, and too opinionated for the job. I put A and B together and figured out who was saying these things—Hookstratten—but I couldn’t get him on the phone. He didn’t know me. So I called Dick Martin from Rowan & Martin, who was a personal friend, and told him, “I think there’s a great opportunity for me which would allow me to go home to Connecticut. Can you help me with Hookstratten?”
He called Hookstratten and said I love this kid, been around him for the last three or four years, he’s terrific, blah, blah, blah. So I went and saw Hook, and he, of course, said, “No, I’m not saying anything about you at all.” He wouldn’t own up to it. A day or two passed and I called Bill Rasmussen and I said, “I just don’t see how this can go anywhere, it’s clear to me that Evey has bought whatever Hook has told him.” So I’m exiting stage right from this whole thing. I’m going to guess this might have been the third or fourth week of June.
STUART EVEY:
At that time, Dick Ebersol and his wife—I forget what her name is, but she was an actress—had recently been married on the beach in bare feet and swimming trunks and they were part of the wild culture at that time. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but I could not see him with that kind of publicity working with and for Getty Oil Company.
DICK EBERSOL:
Then Don Ohlmeyer, who has been my lifelong friend, told me he wasn’t getting along with Chet Simmons and that Simmons was talking with Evey’s friend Hookstratten.
As the 1970s ended, NBC Sports looked like a successful and prestigious operation to those on the outside. Inside the glass house, though, things were not going smoothly, much to the consternation of the division’s senior executive and sports-TV veteran Chet Simmons. His nemesis, NBC chairman Jane Cahill Pfeiffer, wanted to impose her own “new ways of doing things” even though she had little knowledge about the old ways and what made them work.
Chester “Chet” Simmons was one of a handful of pioneers who could claim credit for inventing sports television in the United States. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1950 and earned a master’s in communications from Boston University a few years later. In 1957, Simmons joined an outfit called Sports Programs Inc., which would become the standard setter for sports coverage on TV and eventually evolve into ABC Sports. Simmons was instrumental in developing Wide World of Sports, ABC Sports’ flagship broadcast, and he also helped make ABC’s coverage of the Olympic Games a big-time national event. Simmons had been lured to NBC in 1964 and began shooting up its corporate ladder, but now, in 1979, he knew his days at NBC were numbered.
STUART EVEY:
Ed knew very well which people were reaching the end of their careers at the networks or were soon to be let go. That’s how Chet Simmons came to light. Chet at that time was running NBC Sports, and Ed seemed to be aware that there were going to be major changes and that Simmons may be interested. Now he’d been a long time at NBC Sports, with a good reputation.
CHET SIMMONS, President:
I got a call from this big-time guy in California, Ed Hookstratten. We chatted a little bit and he asked, “How would you like to meet with Rasmussen?” I said, “I’ll meet with anybody, I enjoy talking with people who have ideas.” We had a meeting in New York, then Bill asked if I wanted to see the place. I lived in southern Connecticut, and so one Saturday my wife and I took a ride to Bristol. As we drove into the town, she turned to me and said, “Not on your life. Not on your life.”
It was almost like a bombed-out shelter. All the buildings