duncan228
05-24-2008, 11:16 PM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA052508.Oliver.Radar.EN.27a2f7d4.html
Under the Radar: Spurs radio voice a San Antonio storyteller
Richard Oliver
San Antonio Express-News
On a fall evening in 2002, shortly before tipoff, they flipped the switches up and down press row for the first broadcast of a Spurs game from the team’s newly minted arena.
Nothing happened.
From television to radio, every signal at the then-SBC Center was jammed by some technological gremlin, reducing output to hissing distortion. Before basketballs were even lofted toward rims, profanities were being shouted toward rafters, with producers and officials scrambling like cats in a rainstorm.
Except for Eddie Morris.
The team’s veteran radio engineer ducked under the elongated desk in front of him, snatched a portable phone adapter from his bag and quickly tracked down a working jack, jury rigging a conduit from plug to mixer to announcer Bill Schoening’s microphone.
“TV was hollering, moaning and groaning,” Morris said recently. “I was on the air in three minutes.”
It’s a broadcasting commandment that the West Virginia native has followed in 23 years of overseeing Spurs programs: The show, come hell or high water cannons, must go on.
And it has, for more than 1,000 games. The slightly built, white-haired septuagenarian has been courtside for every home date but two in that span, witnessing David Robinson’s storied career, Sean Elliott’s Memorial Day Miracle in 1999, the Alamodome’s flooded opening night in 1994 and four NBA titles — and counting.
On a professional résumé stretching back more than five decades, Morris’ tenure with the Spurs’ radio team ranks as the most notable entry but is simply one of dozens of chapters of notable achievements in audio production.
Over the years, the affable Morris has owned and operated San Antonio’s first full-time recording studio and low-power TV station and produced and engineered radio programs with country music stars. He has gone on location for recordings and broadcasts at medical conventions, films, musical performances and even bullfights in Mexico, traveling everywhere from Hawaii to New York City.
In sports, he has flipped switches for Kern Tipps on Southwest Conference football games, European broadcasts from last month’s Final Four at the Alamodome and for Rampage hockey and Silver Stars basketball games.
Along the way, Morris took the time to become a father of three, overhaul and showcase antique cars, write and sing original songs on the guitar and banjo and serve as friend and husband to his wife of 33 years, Anne.
But today, the nominee for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame looks back on all of it and recalls the moments when the gremlins arrived to garble things — and he kicked them right in the microphonic tubes.
In Temple roughly 10 years ago, Morris and noted San Antonio broadcast personality Gary DeLaune arrived to work a high school football game, only to find a promised phone line had not been installed. With kickoff approaching, DeLaune hustled to his car for a bag phone, which Morris somehow hooked into his equipment to link back to the home station.
Another radio crew broadcasting nearby, however, was producing a steady hum that interfered with DeLaune’s voice. Morris, thinking fast, grabbed a Dr Pepper can, wrapped copper wire around it, connected it to the equipment and held the can out the window for the entire game to serve as an antenna.
“I’ve seen him take a Model A in equipment and turn it into a Cadillac,” DeLaune said.
For Morris, it is a dedication to excellence born on the track of his high school at Charleston, W.Va. Then, though undersized and slower than the more natural athletes, he shaved his times in the low hurdles with the help of penny matchboxes.
“I’d set them up on the back of the hurdles,” Morris said, “and knock them off with my drag leg when I went over. A lot of people could run those hurdles, but I worked to go over them just right, and it made the difference.”
That attention to detail has spurred Morris in broadcasting since 1952, when he took a course in radio and television at San Antonio’s long-gone Southern College of Commerce. This week, he’ll flip the switches again at the AT&T Center, and one thing will be certain.
“Every Sunday morning, I know that God sent me out to do the work I was meant to do,” Morris said, “and this must be what I was meant to do.”
As a result, the show will go on. As always.
Under the Radar: Spurs radio voice a San Antonio storyteller
Richard Oliver
San Antonio Express-News
On a fall evening in 2002, shortly before tipoff, they flipped the switches up and down press row for the first broadcast of a Spurs game from the team’s newly minted arena.
Nothing happened.
From television to radio, every signal at the then-SBC Center was jammed by some technological gremlin, reducing output to hissing distortion. Before basketballs were even lofted toward rims, profanities were being shouted toward rafters, with producers and officials scrambling like cats in a rainstorm.
Except for Eddie Morris.
The team’s veteran radio engineer ducked under the elongated desk in front of him, snatched a portable phone adapter from his bag and quickly tracked down a working jack, jury rigging a conduit from plug to mixer to announcer Bill Schoening’s microphone.
“TV was hollering, moaning and groaning,” Morris said recently. “I was on the air in three minutes.”
It’s a broadcasting commandment that the West Virginia native has followed in 23 years of overseeing Spurs programs: The show, come hell or high water cannons, must go on.
And it has, for more than 1,000 games. The slightly built, white-haired septuagenarian has been courtside for every home date but two in that span, witnessing David Robinson’s storied career, Sean Elliott’s Memorial Day Miracle in 1999, the Alamodome’s flooded opening night in 1994 and four NBA titles — and counting.
On a professional résumé stretching back more than five decades, Morris’ tenure with the Spurs’ radio team ranks as the most notable entry but is simply one of dozens of chapters of notable achievements in audio production.
Over the years, the affable Morris has owned and operated San Antonio’s first full-time recording studio and low-power TV station and produced and engineered radio programs with country music stars. He has gone on location for recordings and broadcasts at medical conventions, films, musical performances and even bullfights in Mexico, traveling everywhere from Hawaii to New York City.
In sports, he has flipped switches for Kern Tipps on Southwest Conference football games, European broadcasts from last month’s Final Four at the Alamodome and for Rampage hockey and Silver Stars basketball games.
Along the way, Morris took the time to become a father of three, overhaul and showcase antique cars, write and sing original songs on the guitar and banjo and serve as friend and husband to his wife of 33 years, Anne.
But today, the nominee for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame looks back on all of it and recalls the moments when the gremlins arrived to garble things — and he kicked them right in the microphonic tubes.
In Temple roughly 10 years ago, Morris and noted San Antonio broadcast personality Gary DeLaune arrived to work a high school football game, only to find a promised phone line had not been installed. With kickoff approaching, DeLaune hustled to his car for a bag phone, which Morris somehow hooked into his equipment to link back to the home station.
Another radio crew broadcasting nearby, however, was producing a steady hum that interfered with DeLaune’s voice. Morris, thinking fast, grabbed a Dr Pepper can, wrapped copper wire around it, connected it to the equipment and held the can out the window for the entire game to serve as an antenna.
“I’ve seen him take a Model A in equipment and turn it into a Cadillac,” DeLaune said.
For Morris, it is a dedication to excellence born on the track of his high school at Charleston, W.Va. Then, though undersized and slower than the more natural athletes, he shaved his times in the low hurdles with the help of penny matchboxes.
“I’d set them up on the back of the hurdles,” Morris said, “and knock them off with my drag leg when I went over. A lot of people could run those hurdles, but I worked to go over them just right, and it made the difference.”
That attention to detail has spurred Morris in broadcasting since 1952, when he took a course in radio and television at San Antonio’s long-gone Southern College of Commerce. This week, he’ll flip the switches again at the AT&T Center, and one thing will be certain.
“Every Sunday morning, I know that God sent me out to do the work I was meant to do,” Morris said, “and this must be what I was meant to do.”
As a result, the show will go on. As always.