Dierdorf
Speaks Out By George Stahl NEW YORK (AQB)--Some of the items discussed by CBS announcers Dan Dierdorf and Verne Lundquist and CBS Sports President Sean McManus in their conference call Wednesday.
(Sean McManus) “I said about a year ago that our goal was to put together the best NFL talent team in history, and I think adding Dan to our lineup is a major step in that direction. I know this is a very good opportunity for Dan, but believe me, it’s an even better opportunity for CBS. I just could not be more thrilled with the opportunity of adding Dan to our lineup.
(Sean McManus) "Our intention with signing Dan Dierdorf is that Dan is with us until he decides to retire which is hopefully about 30 years from now. I hope the relationship lasts well, well into our next NFL deal."
(Dan Dierdorf) "That was a pretty good story when I left 12 years ago. No, it’s not awkward at all. It really was nobody’s fault [an unsigned contract allowed Dierdorf to leave the network]. It was an unfortunate thing for CBS at the time because I think they would have preferred to keep me. "Boy, in this business, that might as well have been two or three lifetimes ago."
(Sean McManus) “The fact that we are making this announcement today has nothing to do with a delay. It happens to do with the timing that we wanted to have all along [to wait after the NCAA Tournament and The Masters]."
(Dan Dierdorf) "No, I never discussed the studio with Sean. My agent probably did. But then, I pay my agent to talk to anybody about anything." "All my life I’ve been in a stadium, either as a player or as an analyst, and I’m very comfortable in the booth. If Sean wants me to work in the booth, I’ll work in the booth. If he wants me to do something in the studio some time, I’ll go to the studio. I’m a foot soldier." (Sean McManus) "We did consider putting Dan in the studio but, quite frankly, everyone that I talked to who loves the sport of NFL football said to me that they were really, really going to miss not hearing Dan Dierdorf in the booth." I think Dan in the studio would have done a fine job. I think he is unbelievably good in the booth, and I just thought his talents were best showcased there. I think there are awful lot of people in this country who don’t want to go through an NFL season without hearing Dan Dierdorf at football games. "That’s the basis of our decision, and we made that decision pretty early on in our process also."
(Dan Dierdorf) “Geez, I hope I don’t run out of things to say. Certainly, there’s a great deal more freedom in a two-man booth. When you’re in a three-man booth, there’s no other way to describe it other than two men are doing the same job. So you’re splitting it, you’re trying to find the chemistry, you’re trying to find a happy common ground, and it’s not always easy to do. "I’m very much looking forward to getting back into a two-man booth. It’s certainly, of all the broadcasting environments, the most announcer-friendly.” (Sean McManus) "Our plan is to stick with two-man booths. Our philosophy is to go with two-man in the booth, not three."
(Dan Dierdorf) "Getting the opportunity to work with Verne, and a guy that I respect as much as I do Verne, is one of the big reasons that I decided to do this."
(Verne Lundquist) “[As the Cowboys radio announcer in the late 1970s-80s,] I watched him play almost for the entirety of his career. We first met when he was working for KMOX radio, Dan earned his stripes in this business because he went at it from a local station on up. We never worked together, but we have known each other for a long time.” "We were laughing last week about sitting in a place having an adult beverage 15 years ago and saying, ‘You know, some day we ought to work together,’ and who would have known the tortured paths we would take to get here. I’m honored to have him as a partner." "One of the things that early on I respected about [Dan] is that he wanted to come into the business as a working broadcaster. And he did spend time at one of the great radio/television operations in the country, in St. Louis, so he learned from the best there. He never felt like he needed to be given anything. He had earned his right.” "One of his strengths is his willingness to get in and mix it up verbally. There’s a terrific difficulty for some guys to say things on the air, knowing that they are going to go in the locker room and go face-to-face with the players whose abilities they’ve criticized earlier on the air. I think you’ve got to separate yourself from your days as a player. You are paid for your expertise and your willingness to be analytical."
(Dan Dierdorf) "It’s a different way of doing football on Sunday afternoons. Monday night is unique. Monday night, in its presentation, is much more stylized, is much less X's and O's-oriented. And certainly I’ll be getting back to more football basics on Sunday afternoon. And I’ll enjoy that very much. It’ll be fun."
(Dan Dierdorf) "Certainly ABC has changed direction on Monday Night Football. Ever since there was a corporate decision to, in essence, merge ABC Sports with ESPN, Monday Night Football took on much more of an ESPN look, and there was a real drive to make the two of them virtual identical with the exception of the announcing teams. "I read papers just like everybody else, and it appears that they are going to move away from that strategy. And what they do with Monday Night, quite frankly, is up to them. I work at CBS, and my only concern is improving CBS coverage in any way I can. The only thing I can worry about is the game I do with Verne. My focus now is becoming kind of narrow."
(Dan Dierdorf) "I didn’t want them to do anything, and we weren’t going to do anything until at the very end of the game Al Michaels absolutely insisted that he get the camera turned on in the booth and he wanted to say something to me. "That was awkward for me because I would have preferred to just have done the game and signed off. It’s not like I was retiring and going to my cabin up in the woods to fish for the rest of my life. "It was not the most amicable of partings [with ABC]."
(Dan Dierdorf) "The only thing I felt after leaving ABC was a sense of relief that finally, even though it was bad news, bad news was better than no news, and I was glad to get it out. I was glad to have it over with, and I was glad to at least get it over with before I did that last game. And I was able to say goodbye to my friends. "When you spend 12 years working with the same crew, and we were an attacked crew for all that time, anybody who works in this business will tell you that it goes beyond just calling it a friendship. Those people are all my family to me, and I was glad I got a chance to say goodbye. "Never did I feel 'Woe is me,' although I read a lot articles that made my wife say 'Woe is me.' No, I was just fine."
(Dan Dierdorf) "No, it didn’t teach me anything because I had seen how other people had been treated at different places. There are times that this business - but I’m not so sure that it’s not true with any big business - sometimes it can be very cold and very impersonal. "The only frustration I had at ABC was I just wanted someone to tell me exactly what was going on and exactly what they wanted me to do. I went in before the season ever started, and said 'I realize this is the last year of my contract. If you want to make a change, I’m a big boy. Let’s discuss it. Let’s deal with it, and we’ll all just go our separate ways.' "But I could never get them to commit one way or the other. Until finally, right before the Pro Bowl, I knew it was over and nobody would say it was over, so I figured I was the one that had to say it. "I’ve seen people in this business treated really, really well, and I’ve seen people treated really poorly, and I don’t know that it’s any different than any other business. It just all boils down to the quality of the people that you’re dealing with."
(Dan Dierdorf) "I was strongly committed to not working this fall, partly because of the way that I left ABC. I just didn’t think that anything would flip my switch. That was a less-than-happy time for me, and I just didn’t think anything would make me feel good about going back into television. "Over the last couple of months, a lot of people whose counsel I value told me that I’d be foolish not to get back into the game. Then, quite frankly, all my friends at CBS that I worked with before, that I respect, really went out of their way to convince me that this was a good move for me, and that it was the smart thing for me to do "The longer I listened, the more I started to agree with them. It’s something that made sense to me." "Working at CBS Sports [before joining the network in the mid-80s] was the only place I wanted to work my entire life. It’s all I ever dreamed about was working at CBS. Those are three letters that I’ll have no probably saying. C-B-S. C-B-S. It’s been a part of my life for as long as I could remember." "I can’t begin to tell you how welcomed everyone at CBS has made me feel, and don’t underestimate the power of a kind word."
(Dan Dierdorf) "I knew I would get another job sooner or later. I also understood the workings of the TV contract. I had an unusual contractual situation at ABC in that my contract extended one year beyond when the TV deal was done. And when the TV deal is done, everybody is in play. It’s like a big game of musical chairs. Everyone finds a home, and everybody who is qualified sits down and plays. "Yet, mine went one year beyond that, so all of a sudden I’m a free agent, and the reality of it - is something that I knew all along - is that everybody else is set. CBS has a No. 1 team. Fox has a No. 1 team. So I had to be realistic and know that, well geez, I’m just not going to dislodge these people and knock them out of play. They all got long-term contracts. "So I knew I was in a bit of an awkward situation, and [because] fortunately financially sitting out was no big deal, I was prepared to do that. "Part of it is ego. Once you’ve done Monday Night Football, there’s a little something in the back of your head that goes, ‘Well, what the heck am I ever going to do to top this?’” "I had some other options, and they were in the broadcasting business. I had some other options that were outside broadcasting that were interesting me, but nothing compared with the opportunity that’s been presented to me by CBS. On a network basis, this is the only thing that I really seriously considered. This is the perfect fit for me."
(Dan Dierdorf) "Initially, I thought there was no way I could do that. ‘Hey, you’re Dan Dierdorf. You’ve been doing Monday Night Football for 12 years.’ If I didn’t do that, [then] what? Did I expect Fox to fire John Madden? Did I think CBS was going to tell Phil Simms to go away to college with his son? That’s a little unrealistic. "In many ways, this is a real breath of fresh air for me. I get to do what I really like to do, and that’s just do a football game. I don’t have to worry about all the politics and all the - in some ways - unwarranted scrutiny that comes with doing something like Monday Night Football. That was a fabulous run, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. But I have a feeling that I’m going to get back to basics here and have a lot more fun than even I realize."
(Dan Dierdorf) "All I can say is I hope they do very well. First of all, in Al Michaels, you’ve got a real professional and, in Boomer, you’ve got someone who in reality hasn’t broadcast that many football games but will get better with every one. They’ll be fine."
(Dan Dierdorf) "You have to have worked in a three-man booth to understand how awkward it is at times to try to find a rhythm, to try to find a comfortable pace. Frank Gifford and I did it for 11 years, and it became second nature. Sure, there were times that Boomer and I were really working hard to try to find some - oh, I don’t know - some sense of pacing and things like that. But I think that was natural. "Boomer Esiason is a wonderful man, and he and I hit it off. I can’t imagine not always calling him a good friend."
(Sean McManus) "We don’t do boxing right now. If we did do boxing, I would love to talk to Dan about being the play-by-play man because I thought the work he did on ABC, when they were doing a lot of boxing, was terrific." “As events come up, whether it’s boxing in the future or other kind of events, I can see Dan - if he wants to - absolutely doing more things at CBS. Without question." (Dan Dierdorf) "I’m a professional broadcaster. It’s what I do for a living. If CBS would like me to do something, if Sean wants me to do something, all they have to do is call." (Sean McManus) "How do you feel about the pits in Daytona?" (Dan
Dierdorf) "Can
you get me one of those snappy little racing suits?"
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