Tag: WTOP Radio

Frank Herzog: The voice of Washington Champions

Frank Herzog was truly the voice of Washington champions. The next installment from our interview with the legendary Herzog.

Frank Herzog was not satisfied in 1975 with having landed the Washington Bullets PBP announcer position.

This is the third installment in our Commanders Wire feature on Washington broadcast legend Frank Herzog.

Part one.  

Part two.

Herzog didn’t merely want the job; he wanted to do the job well. So, WTOP agreed to send Herzog to the NBA Officials Training Camp in Queens, NY at the Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx.

“I listened to the officials, asked questions about fouls and infractions, the charge call. I  listened and learned so that by the time I did my first Bullets game (the 1975-76 season opener), I felt like I was better prepared for it.”

The Bullets were a winning franchise; the only NBA team to make the playoffs every season during the 70s. They had even been to the NBA Finals twice, losing in 1970-71 and 1974-75. Frank had landed a great broadcasting opportunity.

Frank was working his third consecutive season as PBP announcer for the Bullets, (1977-78) when the team, for the third time in the decade, made the NBA Finals.

Washington and Seattle were tied at 3 games apiece, but the final game would be played in Seattle. The Bullets led the SuperSonics by 13 after three quarters. But when Washington all-star Elvin Hayes fouled out with 8:05 remaining, the Sonics, down 11, found life, whittling the Bullets lead down to 2 in the last minute.

Wes Unseld sank two free throws putting the Bullets up 4, and when the Sonics missed, Herzog’s understandably excited call in that magical moment was, “Unseld the long rebound. Shuffles to Dandridge. The Bullets are going to win! For the first time in 36 years, Washington DC has a major sports, World Champion!”

Frank had done NBA PBP for three seasons, the Bullets won the NBA championship, and Herzog couldn’t wait to get back for his fourth season.

Jim Snyder at WTOP TV 9 had different ideas when he approached Herzog about returning to WTOP TV9. Frank responded that the Bullets had just won it all. He was planning on returning for the next season.

To Herzog’s surprise, Snyder replied that yes, the Bullets had won it all, and yes, Frank had broadcast an NBA championship. However, now would be a good time for him to move to something else.

WTOP TV had hired Glenn Brenner, and Snyder was looking for someone to be Brenner’s reliable backup and the lead sports reporter for TV 9. He felt Herzog was the man for the job. “Jim Snyder was my guiding light; the most important force I ever had in broadcasting.”

In addition to backing up Brenner and reporting on the Bullets, Redskins, Caps and Terps, Herzog would still manage to do some PBP announcing on WTOP broadcasts of Maryland basketball. He worked some games with James Brown, some with Sonny Jurgensen.

“We were actually the first televised college basketball game in the history of the Air Force Academy. We had to lay down the cables and everything else.”

Just six months after broadcasting the Bullets NBA championship, Frank and his wife Sharon were attending the WTOP Christmas Party at the Shoreham Hotel in DC. Herzog learned that coincidentally that same night WMAL radio was holding their Christmas party in an adjoining ball room.

“I had met and knew some of the folks at WMAL. So, we went over there and I met and introduced my wife to WMAL GM Andy Ockershausen. I   simply mentioned that if anything would ever come open for the PBP announcer of the Redskins radio broadcast, I was interested and would love to come and interview.”

“Bam! Two months later, Dan Lovett suddenly retired from sports anchor at TV7 and as PBP announcer for the Redskins and moved out to California.”

“I went down to WMAL, knocked on Andy’s door, and asked if he remembered our conversation. He had. I interviewed for the job and was hired.”

Frank Herzog had become the voice of the champion Washington Bullets. In addition, he would be the next PBP announcer for the Washington Redskins.

 

 

 

Washington’s Frank Herzog from news to sports Reporter

In the second part of our interview with Frank Herzog, he discusses how he went from working in the news to getting into sports.

Washington’s WTOP radio had no idea whom they had hired when Frank Herzog came aboard in 1968.

Initially a copy boy making a mere $2 an hour, then a production assistant editing audio for the WTOP radio newscasts, Frank desired to do some actual reporting.

This is the second installment in our Commanders Wire feature on Washington broadcast legend Frank Herzog. Here is part one.

Working the weekends at WTOP, doing some radio reporting he suddenly found himself making his first TV appearance reporting at the penitentiary in Jessup, Maryland in what Frank believes was 1971 or ’72.

WTOP TV9 was broadcasting a 15-minute Redskins highlights segment on Sunday nights and a producer approached Frank one of his weekends at WTOP radio, asking Frank if he would like to voice over the highlights. Herzog hesitated because he was in radio, not television. “Don’t worry about it; I will cue you for each play,” was the reply to Herzog. “He put together the highlight package, wrote the script, sat out of view of the camera, and would signal me each new play to read the script, and that’s how I started in sports.”

“The ratings went crazy, through the charts,” expressed Herzog. Warner Wolf the weekday WTOP 9 sports anchor hearing of this, then wanted the segment himself.” Herzog quickly learned the big guns would receive the first choice in what work they performed.

Herzog was being noticed as doing a good job in news reporting when he was approached in December 1972 by a WTOP producer, Fred Farrar. A fellow reporter had called in sick. WTOP needed a reporter and fast!

Farrar was “asking” Herzog to go to RFK to report the playoff game against the Packers. Herzog insisted, “Freddy, I know some football, but not that well, to cover an NFL playoff game.”

“Frank, just do your news reporting, who, what, when, where and why. I will lead you through it to the press box and then you do some interviews and you will be fine.”

It was Herzog’s first NFL work. It went so well for Herzog that he was assigned to the game the next Sunday as well. Keep in mind, this was not the preseason or regular season. The defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys were coming to RFK to face the Redskins in the 1972 NFC Championship game, for a ticket to Super Bowl VII.

Again it went well and Herzog’s work as a reporter did not go unnoticed. Monday he sat in on a WTOP meeting. “I was sitting there thinking, ‘I have reported two NFL games. Are you kidding me? Are they talking about sending me to the Super Bowl?’ ”

“Freddy and I were sent to LA for a week, covering all the hoopla for Super Bowl VII. But of course Washington lost to Miami. But that is when I began as a sports reporter. I had been in the right place at the right time.”

A year later when the play-by-play announcer did not want to do a Bullets broadcast (on what Herzog thinks was Christmas Eve), he approached Herzog inquiring if he might like to do the Bullets game himself. Herzog agreed to, and it was his first time at play-by-play announcing an NBA game.

In 1975 he was approached by the WTOP director, informing Herzog, “We think you should go into play-by-play announcing.”

“You get me a team, and I’ll do it, replied Herzog.”

“Ok, we already got the Bullets PBP job for you.”

“I felt awful. Tony Roberts was the Bullets PBP announcer. So I responded, ‘But what about Tony?’ ”

It was explained to Herzog they were moving in a different direction. They thought with Herzog’s news and sports reporting experience he could handle it. But if he didn’t want the job, they would find someone else.

“So, I got the job.”

Frank Herzog had gone from copy boy to production assistant, to radio news reader, to news reporter, to sports reporter, a sports reporter covering Super Bowl VII, to PBP announcer for the NBA’s Washington Bullets in only seven years.

Next time: Frank Herzog the voice of Washington Champions

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