There are very few prestigious honors in the sports broadcasting world that haven’t appeared on the resume of the iconic Warner Wolf. On October 30th, Wolf crossed one of the few remaining achievements off his list, as he received the first-ever Governor’s Award from the New York chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences at the Paley Center. So how did Wolf start his big day? Well, since it was a Monday, he made his weekly appearance on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program. Don’t believe us? Well, then, as Wolf might say, let’s go to the audio tape!
“I never saved any of [my Emmys],” an ever-humble Wolf told Berman and Riedel, “because I always thought of it as the past… but I’ll save this one, absolutely… I want to say [in my speech], ‘I appreciate this award, thank you very much. I’ll be 86 next week; I’m glad I’m not getting it posthumously’.”
Wolf then turned his attention to the weekend’s events on the field, including the Giants-Jets snooze-fest at the Meadowlands, and the Michigan coach who is facing suspension for illegally scouting the other team. That led Wolf to reminisce about a funny story. “The late Giants coach Allie Sherman told me, the day before the Bears-Giants championship game, 1963, Wrigley Field, the Giants are practicing, and he looks up, and there’s twelve guys wearing maintenance men outfits in the stands- Wrigley Field was clean because there hadn’t been a game there in two weeks! So he knew, oh, George Halas sent them out to scout the Giants.”
Photo Credit: Natalie Vacca