The Associated Press is reporting that sportscaster, Jim McCay, has died at the age of 86 years old. McCay is a vague part of my childhood. I remember watching the Wide World of Sports quite a bit. Seems like they’d have a lot of downhill skiing, ski jumps, bob sleds, and various oddball stuff that caught my attention. If nothing else, I always enjoyed tuning in to the introduction to watch the “agony of defeat” guy wipe out at the end of the ski jump.
Wikipedia is awesome. I typed in “Agony of Defeat,” and learned that Vinko Bogataj is the Agony of Defeat guy.
Bogataj was competing as a Yugoslavian entrant at the Ski-flying World Championships in Oberstdorf, West Germany (now Germany) on March 21, 1970. A light snow had begun falling at the start of the event, and by the time Bogataj was ready for his third jump, the snow had become quite heavy. Midway down the ramp for that jump, Bogataj realized that the conditions had made the ramp too fast. He attempted to lower his center of gravity and stop his jump, but instead lost his balance completely and rocketed out of control off the end of the ramp, tumbling and flipping wildly, and crashing through a light retaining fence near a crowd of stunned spectators before coming to a halt. Despite the ferocity of the crash, Bogataj suffered only a mild concussion.
Apparently, the image with “the thrill of victory” was interchangeable, but the agony remained the same.
Here’s the YouTube clip of the interview McCay did with Bogataj 20 years after the jump:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKEDD1i4oGk
Yeah, the agony of defeat is burned in my mind, too.
Somehow I didn’t realize that Jim McKay was still alive.
I’ve been thinking about Jim McCay overnight and realize what I missed most was his commentary during the Olympics. He will always be tied to those games for me…especially when the US won the Hockey gold medal in 1980.
Jim McKay did a nice farewell commentary on Michelle Kwan just a couple of years ago.
McKay was eloquent and understated, unlike so many of the sportscasters today. ESPN spent a considerable amount of time saluting him Saturday. Yet their commentators, particularly on the radio, are the antithesis of McKay. ESPN is all about shallow hype (Big Brown, the Patriots, Barry Bonds). ESPN claims to appreciate McKay. Too bad their commentators don’t emulate him.