Earlier this morning, legendary Washington television sports anchor, George Michael (Mr. "Go For It!"), died at the age of 70 after a two year battle with leukemia. Michael hit the Washington, D.C. market with a bang in 1980 and revolutionized the sports portion of the 6:00 p.m. news. In the days before wide-spread cable and satellite TV, Michael provided Washingtonians with not only great video of the local teams, but introduced many of us to NASCAR, rodeo, professional wrestling, and other off-beat sports.
After dominating the DC market, his 11:30 p.m. Sunday night "Sports Machine" show was picked up nationally by most of the NBC affiliates.
On a personal note, I had the pleasure of spending the day with Michael when I was in 8th grade during "career day". To say the least, I had the best "career day" experience of anyone at Robinson Secondary in 1982. He was a major part of my childhood while growing up in the DC area. I knew to get inside and turn on Channel 4 at 6:18 p.m. every weekday to catch Michael and the local sports.
Click here for the WRC-TV article on Michael's career and life.
What viewers most enjoyed was Michael's interaction with long-time main WRC anchor, Jim Vance. Here is an all-time classic:
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1 comment:
I used to watch the Sports Machine every week in my dorm room on Sunday night on the Youngstown, OH NBC station. There was no cable in our dorms so that was the only show where you could see all the highlights during football season of all the games.
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