TONY VERNA’S INNOVATIVE ‘INSTANT REPLAY’ TURNS FIFTY
Tony Verna in the Control RoomBy Bob Vickrey
As I thumbed through my copy of Tony Verna’s entertaining memoir, “Instant Replay,” I became mesmerized by the pictures in the book’s photo section of the celebrated figures he had worked with during his long television career. There were pictures of him with Jonathan Winters, Joe DiMaggio, Kirk Douglas, President Ronald Reagan, Mother Teresa, and Pope John Paul II.
I sent my old friend an email alerting him of one significant omission—a picture of him and God. He immediately shot back, “I’ll be seeing ‘Him’ soon enough.”
Tony Verna enjoyed a long and glorious television career that spanned more than five decades, and one of his most memorable achievements was creating the technology that allowed today’s viewers to enjoy ‘instant replay.’ His accomplishments have often been relegated to the niche of sports producer and director, but his career spanned a considerably wider scope, including work in the entertainment field, and his cutting-edge development in technological innovation.
The multi-Emmy Award winner did have a rather remarkable record in the sports world as he produced and/or directed five Super Bowls, 12 Kentucky Derbies, several NBA Championships and Stanley Cups, the 1960 Rome Olympics, and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. However, many of his most significant achievements were outside the sphere of sports.
He produced and directed Bob Geldorf’s initial ‘Live Aid’ concert in 1985 that was the first musical fundraiser of its type to address the issue of world poverty. The following year he created the biggest single satellite hookup in the history of television and Internet with an event called, “Prayer for World Peace,” which featured Pope John Paul II. The extraordinarily complicated task of producing a show that reached 16 countries and connected five continents represented a major triumph in the use of new technology.
However, despite all those distinguished credits to his name, Verna’s legacy will always be cast as the man who changed television forever with his concept of ‘instant replay.’ Nowadays, the idea of watching repeated footage of spectacular moments in sports or entertainment events is not only taken for granted in our viewing experience—it is fully expected. But there was a time 50 years ago when that option did not exist. All that changed on December 7, 1963.
A young 29 year-old CBS sports director was assigned to handle the annual Army-Navy football game during an era when both academies were fielding perennially strong teams and drawing exceptional television audiences each year. The game had been postponed 15 days because of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. More than 100,000 fans packed Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia that day to see a Navy team led by its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Roger Staubach take on Army and quarterback Rollie Stichweh.
Director Verna had already alerted play-by-play announcer Lindsey Nelson and color commentator Terry Brennan that he had devised a method to replay the tape of a game-changing play sometime during the contest. Nelson replied, “You’re going to do what?”
Nelson would have been even more shocked than he was after the experiment’s successful completion if he had only known the complex and problematic logistics of what Verna had been forced to navigate to pull off this technological benchmark. The equipment necessary to show the videotaped replay weighed more than one ton and had to be transported from Grand Central Station via Hertz rental truck to Municipal Stadium in South Philly.
When Verna’s technical director finally punched up Rollie Stichweh’s touchdown dive in the fourth quarter, he shouted in Nelson’s ear, “This is it!” Nelson then cautioned the television audience, “This is not live, ladies and gentlemen. Army did not score again.”
Media critics dubbed the achievement, “the day televised football changed forever.” Entertainment Weekly listed it as “One of the 100 greatest moments in television history.” Sports Illustrated included it among television’s “20 Great Tipping Points.” Although the CBS network tried to take credit for Verna’s astonishing innovation, Bill McPhail, the Vice-President of CBS Sports, had always referred to it as “Tony’s baby.”
To say the man has lived a colorful and enchanted life would indeed be a mild understatement. In the many breakfast meetings we’ve shared during recent years, I’ve encouraged him to tell me stories about Grace Kelly, Duke Ellington, Edward R. Murrow, or DiMaggio, and he has always gladly complied with a tale seemingly better than the one before.
Verna retains much of his boyish good looks with a chiseled face that only hints of the tough street life of his Philadelphia boyhood. The slight curvature at the apex of his nose offers about the only evidence of the escapades of his youth. He still has a ‘Philly twang’ with his rapid delivery and possesses a quick wit that constantly keeps you slightly off balance. He has a cool demeanor, but warms quickly when he decides he likes you.
One morning as we sat together at a local sidewalk café, I spotted legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully walking past us on the sidewalk. I whispered to Tony that his old pal was nearing our table. When he yelled “Vinnie,” Scully dashed toward Verna and the two locked in an extended bear-hug that spoke volumes of their long friendship.
After Scully left us to finish our breakfast, I asked Tony how long it had been since they had gotten together socially. He said, “Sadly, way too long.” I asked him when the last time he had spoken to his great friend Frank Gifford, and he knew instinctively the drift of my questioning. We talked that day about our old friendships and how we tend to take them for granted as we get older, and of the vital importance of maintaining those bonds formed years earlier with people who have played important roles in our lives. Tony and I may travel in quite different social circles, but the principle is nevertheless the same.
A month lapsed before Tony and I dined together again and he quickly mentioned that he and his wife Carol had enjoyed a wonderful dinner with Vin and Sandy Scully the previous week. He had also called Gifford in New York, and said they had an extended conversation and had made plans to get together in coming months. Tony said our conversation had reminded him of friendships that had been pivotal for him through the years and had renewed his vow to stay better connected with them.
Verna never really officially retired. He has written a number of books on a wide array of topics. He wrote a handbook about producing and directing live television, a book on the Civil War, and also penned a murder mystery several years ago. He has patented several inventions in recent years, including “Instant Footballer,” a ‘customized widget’ presence on the computer screen that allows a fan to continue their normal Internet surfing habits while still retaining the ability to follow the progress of the game they are most interested in.
When Tony began telling me all the new projects he has been working on, I could sense the same excitement that young 29 year-old director likely had when he once dreamed of finding a more exciting way to broadcast games into American living rooms and enhancing the viewing experience for millions of sports fans. Tony Verna’s mind is never still. He’s always scheming and planning the ‘next big thing.’ I strongly suggest that America stay tuned.
Bob Vickrey’s columns have appeared in the Houston Chronicle and Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He is a member of the Board of Contributors for the Waco Tribune-Herald. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.
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Honey on the road to San Francisco with some of the Spanish explorers
NOTES FROM ABOVE GROUND
By Honey van Blossom
(Honey is a Belgian Marxist former strip-tease artiste)
"Cities of the Golden Gate," Raymond Dabb Yelland, 1893. Most illustrations can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Prologue to the story of the Spanish exploration and settlement of California
Seasonal migrations of animals now extinct in California probably created the roads the native people used before the Spanish land exploration of California. “The heyday of giant mammals in North America was the middle and late Pleistocene, an epoch that started 2.6 million years ago and ended 11,700 years ago, around the time the Earth was thawing out from the Ice Age. The gigantic beasts, which migrated from Asia across a now-vanished land bridge called Beringia, are known as Rancholabrean megafauna, after the famous La Brea tar pits in downtown Los Angeles — the graveyard of thousands of saber-toothed tigers, giant bison and other extinct animals.”[1]
The seasonal migrations of the large mammals may have created the substantial roads used by the indigenous people after their arrival.[2]
Paul S. Martin and Richard G. Klein argue that Paleoindian over-hunting led to the extinction of the megafauna.[3] Others argue that climate change was responsible for mammoth and mastodon extinctions. As the last major glaciation ended around 12,000 years ago, climate warmed too quickly for the megafauna to adapt.
