History Lesson 
Tuning in Dandy Don
By marrying television, football gained an audience but lost a game
(Page 4 of 5)
All is in readiness for tomorrow night, when this truck, buried deep in the substructure of Texas Stadium, will be the nerve center for an intricate web of communication, weaving through the stadium and out across the land from sea to shining sea. Communication. That's what this effort is all about. Not only communication between Texas Stadium and the nation, but communication among the television crew as well.
"That's all our medium is. It's all communication," Forte shrugged. "Whether it's among those or us in the truck, or whether I'm talking to a cameraman or slo-mo or videotape operator or to the announcers—the whole thing is a chain of communication. If the communication among all of us goes well during a game, 90 times out of a 100, we've probably had a hell of a telecast. If there are arguments back and forth, or if there are plays where I'm not communicating to Cosell, or if the replay is off, or we haven't told Don what the isolate is or who's making the tackle or something like that, then..." and he shrugs again, "we miss it."
He leans forward, intense and concentrated. "The chemistry only comes by working together. You hope you're going to get some kind of rhythm to a ball game. It's hard for me to describe what it is, that rhythm. You just know it. It's when things are going right and the shots are there and the guys in the booth are doing their thing, and every cameraman is on, and you feel it," he says. Then he leans back, relaxed. "You just feel it. And you know it's good."
Don Meredith, for all his appreciation or what television has done for football, has some reservations. "I hope that football doesn't become overly saturated or overly-emphasized, Meredith says, his voice thoughtful. "As far as football is concerned, you have to remember that, basically, it is only a game. To try to make it anything more is to do an injustice to the game and to the American public who watches it on television. I think there is a fine line; you really have to be careful.
"I don't know a lot about the mechanics of football, but I think that I have a pretty good 'gut-feel' about it. This is what I'm trying to get over... what I really feel about the game. Howard says that he is bringing a 'touch of journalism' to football telecasting for the first time. Well, there are several types of journalism. In a way, I'm bringing a type of journalism to it as well. Maybe a kind of personal journalism."
It is evident to anybody who spends a few moments in front of the TV set on Monday Night, or who has heard any of the many anecdotes about him, that Don Meredith is a charming, warm, spontaneous human being who rushes at experience with all the naive gusto you would expect of a kid from Mt. Vernon. But that is far from being the total story. There is a skeptical quality to this man, perhaps more hidden and protected, but equally strong. He trusts his instincts and follows where they lead him, and this headlong plunging into life yields a variety of results. But, whatever these results are, they are coolly examined, evaluated, and filed for future reference. When Don Meredith chalks up one for experience, the chalk marks are deep and lasting.
"This past off-season, I worked on things that I wanted to say on television—ideas, philosophies, attitudes—and I'm trying to work them in. Some of them I've gotten in; some of them I haven't. I'm still not pleased with what I think could be done, because this is a beautiful opportunity. It's quite heavy when you think about all those people out there. You can really do a number on their heads. So you have to be really careful and sure of yourself. Sure that you're doing it well. One of the disappointing things about what I do is that a lot of folks miss what I said. They heard me, but they weren't listening. And that is frustrating.
"But then you say to yourself, 'I'll figure out another way to do it.' Not only is there the constraint of the compressed time, but there are also two other guys in the booth whose heads may not be where your head is. So there are a few little obstacles to overcome if you want to get your thoughts in there in the way you think you ought to do it.
"The odds are, when you do manage to say something, there will be some listeners who understand. But you never know. In Houston I said, 'Pro football is not what it used to be—but then, it never was.' That's a line that I don't expect everybody to get. But if somebody out there gets it, then they are going to look at football in a new way. If they can get into that idea and realize that everything is always changing, even football, and it is nothing to get hung up on...Well, I thought that was really a super line. But Frank and Howard looked at me in the booth and said, 'Whaa-a-at??? What's that you're saying?"' Don Meredith smiles his friendly, famous smile, but his eyes are detached and knowing.
With Meredith's words of wisdom about professional football not being what it used to be, if it ever was, still working in my mind, I had come to the point to test the pudding for the proof. My first professional football game, in person, was at hand. Dallas versus Detroit, Texas Stadium, Irving, Texas.
Texas Stadium, from where Don Meredith would soon be broadcasting, is almost an architectural obscenity, a giant concrete dumpling afloat in a stew of asphalt parking lots and expressway intersections. That was how it seemed on a dense night last autumn, with dirty gray clouds hanging low in the sky and with the stadium, like a squatty malevolent candle, drawing toward itself a multitude of innocent, moth-like automobiles.
We parked in one of the many parking lots, all of which adhered strictly to that canon of American organization which establishes that the most powerful shall park closest. All of the lots had been color-coded into a hierarchical caste system. Blue, of course, was best. At Texas Stadium, as elsewhere in life, there is a bit of difficulty in sorting the populace into their proper and appropriate stations. It took a large number of policemen and stadium personnel to channel the flotilla of automobiles into the right harbor. After parking was finally accomplished, there remained the problem of finding the correct gate.
We had it lucky. Upon alighting from our car, we were fortunate to spy Howard Cosell just ahead of us. Because we had press passes, we hurried to walk along behind him. We felt that if anybody could find the press gate, it would have to be Howard.
As it turned out, we got through the gate before Cosell, for, just as he was approaching it, a man wearing a Stetson and boots caught sight of him and called out loudly, "Hey, Howard," he said, "I want you to meet my boy." Patiently, with a very genial smile, Cosell turned to shake the offered hands. Before he could pass through the gate, a plump lady in a purple polyester pantsuit and a beehive hairdo, ran up to him and said something, giggling madly all the while. Just beyond, her similarly attired friend jumped up and down shrieking, "!Ohhh, she's SPEAKING to him. Didcha SEE it? She SPOKE to him! Ohhh!!" The audicious lady in purple returned to her friend, swinging her wide hips in a jaunty celebration of her intrepid foray into the land of the celebrated. "I TOLE you I was gonna do it," she smirked proudly. "I TOLE you!" "Ohhh," squealed her friend, "you're just TOO MUCH."
Since my companion and I did not suffer the impediments of fame, we passed through the gate without handshake or greeting and soon found ourselves waiting outside the press elevator. This was obviously a very special elevator, since riding it required a ticket which was claimed by a uniformed guard. The elevator served both the press and those persons of wealth and privilege who owned the boxes on the second tier of the Stadium. Any person, place, or thing possessing $50,000 may use that amount to purchase revenue bonds from the community of Irving, which, technically, owns the stadium. Such a purchase grants one a box composed of cement floors and sheetrock walls. Comfort is not included in the $50,000 price tag. It must be purchased separately and, it is said, can cost as much as an additional $100,000.
By the time the friendly armed guard had waved us onto the elevator, and we were crushed against its back wall by well-dressed, gray-haired men smelling of expensive talc, I was already feeling what Don Meredith was to mention in his television introduction later that evening.
"Here we are in Texas Stadium," Meredith said, "which some people call the finest football facility in the world and others call a vulgar display of wealth."
According to one of the television crew, waiters rode this elevator, too. He related an incident that occured when he was riding from the basement level with two young blacks dressed in waiters' uniforms. The elevator stopped at the first floor to pick up a couple of flushed and jovial football patrons. (Anybody who pays more than $50,000 for a box deserves to be called something more prestigious than football fan.) Greeting the waiters with hearty backslaps and conviviality fueled from the plastic cups they carried, one said, "We're gonna have us one good time, aren't we, boys?"
The waiters tried to push through this rush of congeniality with an evenly-announced, "Coming out, please." Perplexed, one patron responded loudly, "Wait a minute, boys. This is the wrong floor. The boxes are on the second floor."
The taller of the two waiters gave the patron a long, cool glance as he replied, "First floor is where the slaves get off."
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