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Murphy Martin Commentary
December 29, 2005

 "The Party's Over"

The fall of 2006 will still have footballs flying around on television on Monday nights during NFL action but it will never be the same. The end of another era took place last Monday night. More than five-hundred games after the Roone Arledge idea began on ABC-TV with Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and Don Meredith describing the action, Al Michaels and John Madden brought it to an almost majestic conclusion with Meredith once again singing what had become the closing theme--"Turn out the lights the party's over!" Sure it was another piece of classic tape lifted from storage bins that house so many wonderful moments provided by Meredith, Cosell and Frank Gifford who replaced Jackson as play-by-play man after that first 1970 season.

Who would have ever guessed that something called a "cable" network would come along thirty-five years later and bid more than a BILLION-DOLLARS a year for the rights to Monday Night NFL games?

As my wife and I watched last Monday night unfold with it's deep treasury of memorable replay moments from past telecasts, I couldn't help recalling the many times I was either in the broadcast booth during their telecasts or was around Dandy Don and Frank Gifford and Cosell who did sports on a news program I co-anchored on WABC-TV in New York City after I left my anchor job at the ABC-TV network.

I remember being in the ABC-TV booth at the Cotton Bowl when St. Louis was blasting the Cowboys by more than 30-points in the early seventies. The crowd in the stadium began to chant "We want Meredith. We want Meredith!" They turned and stood in the stands and continued the chant for quite a while. Dandy probably wished he had heard that more often when he was still playing for the Cowboys.

After four years with Cosell and Gifford, the suave, handsome veteran of Southern Cal and New York Giant football success, Meredith decided he would try his hand at acting and that disrupted the longevity of the Monday Night Magic. Arledge reached out and got another former pro-football player, Alex Karras, to fill Meredith's slot.

Three years later Karras was gone and Dandy Don was back....and so was the magic of Monday Night Football.

From 1977 through 1983 Frank Gifford directed traffic between the big city attorney, Cosell, and the down-home Texan from Mt. Vernon, Meredith and the ratings skyrocketed. Adding Fran Tarkington and O.J. Simpson at different times only weakened the team.

Cosell was gone after the 1983 season and the telecast went south until Al Michaels teamed up with Gifford in 1986 and later with John Madden in 2000. Other efforts to use Joe Namath, Boomer Esaison, and Dennis Miller only made Michael's job more difficult and at times embarrassing.

Among the personal stories I recall about Cosell, Meredith and Gifford are these. After a game in Texas Stadium on a Monday night, The President of the ABC-TV Network, Walter Schwartz and his wife Ginny, and Cosell and his wife Emmy were in the car with my wife Joyce and me. Howard usually had a limo but this was a different night and we were going out to dinner. Traffic was just inching along, I was in the middle lane headed toward the Marriott Motor Inn on Stemmons. Howard, riding in the front seat with Joyce and me said: "Murphy, can't we do something about this traffic?" I told him to lower his window and ask the truck driver in the outside lane if we could get in front of him to make the next exit. Howard lowered his window and said: "Pardon me sir, would you mind allowing us to move into the lane in front of you so we can make the next exit?" The trucker ignored him and pulled on up. Howard repeated his plea and again the truck driver refused to let us in his lane. With that, Cosell raised the window and turned to the network president in the back seat and said: "Can you imagine that, the sonofabitch didn't recognize me!"

My father adored Don Meredith. When he was 80-years old some friends drove him to Dallas and I took him to the Monday Night Game to meet Dandy Don. In the press box before the game got underway, I introduced Dad and Dandy was just Dandy. He spent time looking Dad right in the eye, thanking him for his kind words and asking him to keep on drinking that Lipton tea which Dad had said he used because Don advertised it. It was a great moment in my Dad's life.

Twenty-years later, at the age of 100, I had to place my father in a Nursing home. A couple of months after that I saw Dandy Don at a Charity Golf Tournament in Dallas and told him about putting my Dad in the nursing home. Don asked for the address of the nursing home and I gave it to him. That was on a Monday. The following Saturday, Dad received a package from Santa Fe, New Mexico. In it was an 8X10
autographed photo, A very warm letter from Dandy Don and an autographed Lipton Tea Bag. Those treasured items were framed and placed on a wall near Dad's bed. He told everyone who entered his room for the next three years all about them. Don Meredith was never more Dandy than with my Dad.

Frank Gifford was always obliging too. He was never too busy to visit when he was in Dallas to do a game. However, It seems I saw him mostly at funerals the last few years.

One indelible moment is forever imprinted in my mind. The burial of Coach Tom Landry was in progress at Sparkman-Hillcrest in Dallas. The special friends in the Chapel where the service had been held walked to the grave-site about a hundred yards from the Chapel. Most of the Landry era Cowboys were there, the rifles had been fired and Taps was being sounded. I had seen Gifford in the Chapel before the service started. But as taps sounded and I stood with my wife a few feet from Coach Landry's casket, I glanced to my left and Walt Garrison and Randy White had tears streaming down their cheeks. I glanced to my right and realized Frank Gifford was standing beside me with Wellington Mara, the owner of the New York Giants. They, as everyone else, paying tribute to the legend being buried, were reaching for their handkerchiefs to dry the tears away. They were witnessing the end of an era, the Landry era.

Last Monday evening we saw the end of another. Thank you Frank, Howard and Don. You blazed the trail and Mondays have never quite been the same since you began thirty-five years ago.

Thank you gentlemen....the pleasure was ours!

Murphy Martin

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