LOS ANGELES – The best way to listen to Hot Rod Hundley was alone, cruising down a long stretch of highway at night. There was something in the vast darkness on the way to Las Vegas or Evanston that took your mind back to the intersection of what is now John Stockton and Karl Malone Drives. Something in his voice that made you think of, well, an old cowhide globe. A national writer once said Hundley sounded like he had "gargled with salt water on a foggy night."
Even an out-of-state listener, speeding past the Salt Flats on the way to or from the coast, could tell immediately it was an NBA broadcast. The rapid cadences — from "belt-high dribble" to "leapin' leaner" to "the ol' cowhide globe hits home!" — perfectly captured the rhythm of the game.
Whenever he would call out, "Utah Jazz basketball is comin' up next, and you gotta love it, baby!" I have to admit, I did.
I loved hearing Hot Rod call the games as much as I did watching them in person.
Tonight at the Staples Center, the Jazz face playoff elimination, in which case it will be the final call for Hundley, the only radio play-by-play man the franchise has ever known — in New Orleans as well as Utah. The new voice will undoubtedly be efficient, informed, updated and opinionated. But I don't expect to hear the creak of weathered hardwood in his voice. I won't sense the richness of Hot Rod's 42 years and 3,000 games, either.
When the team moved him from courtside to the back of the lower bowl to accommodate more luxury seating, it may as well have taken away his eyes. He was no longer in the game. But his retirement was also about the road, his life for five decades. Late games and long distances had begun wear on him.
Yet even at 74, he still had that boyish love of the game and his trademark rakish grin. I sat next to him on press row my first year on the beat, 19 years ago. The man was a celebrity. He signed autographs, made appearances, had books written about him. More than once that season, he flashed the same familiar grin as he showed me room keys women had passed down to him.
Tonight before the Jazz meet the Lakers, he'll talk easily with Jack Nicholson as they settle in. They've known one another since Nicholson was a twentysomething aspiring star and Hot Rod played for the Lakers. Many of the game's greats knew him – Magic and Kareem, to name two — and made it a point to shake his hand before games. In Utah, everyone knew him, from politicians and presidents to skycaps and school teachers.
Who didn't recognize the phrases "good if it goes!" and "yo-yo dribble"?
The years passed and players came and went. Hot Rod was a constant. I always wondered how he could like Salt Lake after loving his life in New Orleans. But he did.
"The people in Utah have been very, very good to me," he said.
Hot Rod was good back. He gave them a voice they trusted, not to mention more than one memorable nickname.
I can thank him for a name I never asked for. My first year as Jazz beat writer, the newspaper was running drop-in ads that said, "For the best in Jazz coverage, read Brad Rock in the Deseret News."
One night, Hundley blurted, "For the best in Jazz coverage read Brad Rock, the Rockmonster! Only in the Deseret News!"
We both laughed. Fifteen years later he was still calling me Rockmonster and we were still laughing.
That doesn't mean all his nicknames stuck. "The Brown Bear," "Big T Bailey" and Rickey "Fastest of 'Em All" Green survived, as did "The Mailman," a carryover from his days at Louisiana Tech. But "Little John" Stockton and Deron "Slick" Williams didn't.
Darrell Griffith was "Dr. Dunkenstein" until Hot Rod renamed him "The Golden Griff."
His broadcasts worked because they never sounded like he was working. On my occasional moonlit drives, I could see him in my mind, chuckling as he referenced, "the very handsome (referee) Ronnie Nunn" or waved across the time line at Don Nelson or Pat Riley.
My parents loved his broadcasts. They would commiserate with him over a blown call or a careless turnover. It thrilled them when, during a lull in one game, he and color commentator Ron Boone gave them a shout-out in my behalf.
It made them local celebrities in their town for a day.
After Mom died, Dad continued to keep a Jazz schedule by his bed. He would turn on his radio, and through the lonely winter nights, Hot Rod kept him company. Dad said sometimes he'd drift off into a half-sleep with the broadcast on and think Mom was still by his side.
It was Hot Rod's gift.
He kept a lot of us company in the dark.
email: rock@desnews.com