Books: "That Deserves a Wow," By Chris Myers

 

That Deserves a Wow 

By Chris Myers

William Morrow; hardcover, 320 pages; $30.00; available today, Tuesday, November 19th

Chris Myers is an Emmy Award-winning play-by-play announcer, reporter, and studio host, whose career has spanned over four decades, including thirty years at major networks. Currently with Fox Sports, Myers has contributed to the coverage of a variety of sports, including the NFL, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, and basketball at both the NCAA and NBA levels. He has been a network reporter for multiple Super Bowls and World Series.

In the engrossing new book, That Deserves a Wow, Myers writes about his distinguished career while providing a front row seat to some of the most unforgettable moments in sports history. These are moments that have shaped the sports world, as well as pivotal moments that have transcended it. 

Myers' career began as a teenager at a local radio station in Miami, where he got to interview Muhammad Ali at the Fontainebleau Hotel in May 1975, as he was getting ready to fight Ron Lyle. The description of the press conference captured what reporters were like in that era, in suits, with some wearing hats and chomping on cigars, and what Ali was like in that setting. "Here I watched a warrior commanding a room, not with his punches but rather with his words," Myers writes. "His quips and soundbites. He was entertaining and quick-witted. He played off people and never ran from a question. He was never stumped by a reporter. The banter captivated all of us."

Eventually, Myers moved on to ESPN, during it's "wild west" era when the cable network changed how we watch sports forever, to FOX Sports, where he is to this day. 

There are hilarious stories of Myers' friendships with the actor Bill Murray, who provides the Foreword for this book, as well as basketball superstar Charles Barkley. There also are accounts of challenging interviews with boxer Mike Tyson, and legendary football coaches Bill Belichick and Don Shula. 

A seminal moment for Myers came in January 1998 when he had the first live interview with O.J. Simpson, just over a couple years after he was acquitted of murder. It was his eighth year at ESPN and fourth hosting "Up Close" and Simpson's agent reached out to the show, claiming he was a viewer and felt Myers was fair.

"O.J.'s people said we could ask him anything," Myers writes. "There were only two requests. The first was that the interview had to be live. That was why he had declined to be interviewed by Barbara Walters; he didn't want to tape it so the conversation could be edited. He wanted it live. His other request was that I couldn't ask about his children, a request I thought was fair and agreed to."

Myers writes that he received a lot of backlash for agreeing to interview Simpson, who passed away this past April. He even was told by Robert Shapiro, who was part of Simpson's "Dream Team" of attorneys, to not do it, and that anybody with a connection to Simpson was "bad news." Myers soldiered on, as he felt it was a chance he couldn't pass up, and his descriptions of the preparation for the interview, how it went, and the reaction to it, make it one of the best parts of the book. (For younger readers, the entire interview is on YouTube)

Myers also gives a detailed look at the 2004 American League Championship Series, when he served as a sideline reporter, and was situated by the Yankees dugout while they were at Fenway Park for Game 3, ahead 2-0 in the series. 

During the bottom of the sixth inning, with the Yankees ahead 13-6, he was tasked with interviewing legendary mystery writer Stephen King, a vaunted Red Sox fan. "For someone known for killing off his characters in creative ways, King seems particularly charitable," Myers writes. "Donning a navy Red Sox cap and a red team coat, the famous novelist looks like any other diehard in the seats." 

The Yankees would go on to a 19-8 win and take a 3-0 lead in the series. Boston was on the verge of being swept and dropping the ALCS to the Yankees for the second straight year, and Myers brings the reader back to what the world was like then for the Red Sox, who were still under the "Curse of the Bambino." 

The Red Sox would come back to beat the Yankees by winning the next four games in stunning fashion, games marked by Dave Roberts' steal of second base in the ninth inning of Game 4, David Ortiz's game-winning hits, and Curt Schilling's Game 6 performance with a bloody sock. They then won the World Series over the St. Louis Cardinals, the first of four they have won in the past two decades.

Another legendary Boston moment he got to cover was when he was a sideline reporter for Super Bowl LI, when the New England Patriots came back from 28-3 down to beat the Atlanta Falcons. 

While Myers' career has had many uplifting moments, there were some sobering events along the way. He was tasked with covering the earthquake that happened during the 1989 World Series in San Francisco, and how it changed players and coaches' perspectives as he reported live. He also reported live from the scene of the bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 196, as well as when Dale Earnhardt was killed in a crash at the Daytona 500 in February 2001.

There also is the deeply heartfelt part when Myers writes of the pain of losing his 19-year-old son Christopher in a car accident and how suddenly, the tables were turned. "For my entire career, it has never been about me. Covering the game and the players was always the priority. But suddenly, this story was about me and my entire family."

In this excerpt, Myers writes about what being an announcer means to him: "People often tell me that I've got the best job any guy could ever want, and I agree with them. There is nothing like standing on the field while the Super Bowl is taking place right in front of you. Or listening to coaches and players in a dugout during a World Series. Or feeling the rush of race cars approaching 200 miles an hour at the Daytona 500. We all fall in love with sports during our childhood, but it is a rare thing to build a career around being a kid at heart. 

Every sports fan is waiting for those special moments - the walk-off home run, the game-tying touchdown to send it to overtime, the knock-out punch. But as a kid, I was fascinated to hear the athletes talking afterward about those moments. I loved listening to them. A part of me always wondered what made certain athletes so great and why they did what did in certain situations. Where did they come from? How did they get to this point in their career? Some kids grew up wanting to be superstar athletes, but I wanted to be the guy talking to an interviewing them. This genuine appreciation and curiosity about their skill set has led to a lifetime of interacting with the most talented athletes in the history of sports. I have been able to ask the questions that people have wanted to ask themselves. And I've been paid to do it!

One of the best parts of my job has been the variety I've had. I've always been interested in lots of different things, and I've had the chance to do many of them. Some broadcasters only do play-by-play; others will only focus on one particular sport. I've been in all kinds of roles in all different sports. I've reported the sports news of the day behind a desk, and I've also been a sideline reporter watching it happen in real time. I've interviewed players in the sanctuary of a studio and have also run after them on a field. I've been the pregame/postgame host and I've done play-by-play. But here's the thing...

This book isn't just about me. 

It's the story of a journey through six decades of sports. A journey that starts with a kid who found his way through childhood by dreaming of becoming a broadcaster on the radio talking about sports. This dream brought him face-to-face with the greatest athletes of all time. It took him to the Masters and the Super Bowl and the World Series and so many other major games. But it also brought him to witness other incredible events - an earthquake at the World Series, a bombing at the Olympics, the death of a NASCAR driver at the Daytona 500, and the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial.

This book is about those moments and many more. I happened to be the one person right in the middle of it all, and I'm privileged to tell you about it.

Everybody has a story. For those exceptional few who get to play in professional sports of any kind - those athletes put under the bright lights and the cameras and the public eye - people have so many questions. We all want to get to know these star competitors. We want to see what makes them tick. What makes them triumph. What they do when they lose. And I've been able to ask those questions. I've asked them for myself out of curiosity. I've asked them for my network. I've asked them for my colleagues and for fellow athletes. But most of all, I've asked them for the audience. For the viewers. For you."