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morning. He wanted me to meet him at the airport around five that afternoon. He was flying up to San Francisco, where the Lakers were playing a preseason game against the Warriors at the Cow Palace, and wanted me to join him. Hours later, I was on the plane with him and confused about exactly what was happening. The mysteriousness, though, was exciting. We flew back to Los Angeles after the game, and I was still confused. Then, at the end of the following week, my boss in the PR department told me I was going to be the new radio color announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers.
    What? A few months earlier, I’d been trying to convince people to try out for The Dating Game . Now I was going to be the color man for the Los Angeles Lakers! Jerry West!! Elgin Baylor!! I was twenty-two years old.
    Now it was October. The Lakers’ preseason schedule was winding down, and Cooke wanted me to join the team immediately. So I flew to Salt Lake City, where the team that night was playing the Baltimore Bullets. It was the first stop of a three-game, three-night trip, and right off the bat, I was going to be on the air alongside Chick Hearn, the team’s extremely popular, eventually iconic announcer. This was too good to be true.
    And you know what? It was. Chick didn’t want to work with anybody , least of all a twenty-two-year-old.
    So when I arrived in Salt Lake City, I didn’t exactly get the warmest greeting from my new partner. Chick put up a virtual wall. And when the radio broadcast started, my role as “color announcer” for the Lakers turned out to be something that was neither color, nor announcing. I was consigned to reading the halftime stats. That’s it. And during the actual game, I did nothing but keep statistics for Chick.
    So that was my debut. And then we flew to Boise, Idaho, and drove to the small town of Rupert for another game the next night against the Bullets. Then on Sunday, we flew to Seattle for a game with the Warriors that was a part of a doubleheader, with the Sonics, who were in their inaugural season, meeting the St. Louis Hawks in the other game. On each broadcast, all I did was read the halftime stats. No color, no analysis, nothing else.
    We flew back to Los Angeles after the Seattle game, and Monday was an off day. Tuesday we flew to Fresno for a game with the San Francisco Warriors. That game was on television as a simulcast—the same broadcasting crew, with one call for both radio and TV. But that night, Chick didn’t even mention my name on the air except when he impassively turned it over to me for the halftime numbers—which by the way, didn’t include an on-camera appearance. He didn’t talk to me much anywhere else, either—before or after the games, on the bus, at the hotel. Instead I wound up becoming a little friendly with some of the players who were closer to my age, and much more welcoming. Mel Counts, the seven-foot center, and I had two or three meals together on those first couple of road trips. I quickly developed a nice vibe with Archie Clark, a second-year guard. West and Baylor were the big stars and I was in awe of them, but they were friendly enough.
    The regular season was starting, and I was beginning to get a little nervous. On the one hand, I had this great job title: color announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers. But really, what was I other than a stat reader? Meanwhile, I’d been given another duty that had nothing to do with broadcasting. I was basically a quasi–traveling secretary, which meant getting to the airport early—these were the days when NBA teams flew commercial—and handing out the tickets to the players. Yes, I’d been looking for expanded duties, but on the air, not at the airport.
    Now it was on to the regular season, which opened with a road trip. We started in Chicago, and then flew to Philadelphia, where the Spectrum had just opened. Next, St. Louis, then still the home of the Hawks. (The Gateway Arch was being built at the time, a thrilling