Monday, August 5

L.A. Loses a Legend

Beloved broadcaster Hearn, who called a record 3,338 consecutive Laker games starting in 1965, dies at 85.

Chick Hearn, who made phrases like "slam dunk" and "air ball" common basketball expressions during his 42-year broadcasting career with the Lakers, died Monday night. He was 85.

Hearn, the only play-by-play announcer the Los Angeles Lakers ever had, died at 6:30 p.m. at Northridge Medical Center Hospital, team spokesman Bob Steiner told a grim-faced news conference outside the hospital.

Hearn was taken to the hospital Friday night after falling and striking his head in the back yard of the Encino home he shared with his wife, Marge. The two would have celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary on Aug. 13.

Surgeons operated twice on Saturday to relieve swelling in his brain, but he never regained consciousness.

"Chick, we'll miss you dearly, Quite simply, you're the best," said Mitch Kupchak, the team's general manager and a former player, his voice breaking.

Hearn called a record 3,338 consecutive Lakers games starting in 1965 before missing a game because he had to have an operation in December 2001 for a blocked aortic valve.

While recovering, he fell and broke his hip.

Despite that setback, he returned to work April 9 and broadcast the Lakers' playoff run to their third consecutive NBA championship.

Whether Hearn was the most famous Laker of them all can be debated, but his career with the team was far longer than such standouts as Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy and Michael Cooper.

And he was calling games long before current stars Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant were born.

He called his first Lakers game in March 1961. His last game was June 12 when the Lakers beat the New Jersey Nets 113-107 in East Rutherford, N.J., to complete a sweep of the NBA Finals and earn their ninth title since moving from Minneapolis in 1960.

Born Francis Dayle Hearn on Nov. 27, 1916, in Aurora, Ill., Hearn peppered his rapid-fire delivery with terms like "no harm, no foul," "the mustard's off the hot dog," "ticky-tack foul," and "faked him into the popcorn machine."

Whenever he believed a Lakers victory was clinched, Hearn would say: "You can put this one in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O is jiggling."

Hearn's unique "words-eye view" provided the soundtrack for nine NBA championships—one with West and Chamberlain, five with Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar, and the last three with O'Neal and Bryant.

Hearn also was a comforting voice to fans in difficult basketball times—helping fans cope with Johnson's HIV announcement in 1991 and Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers' death in 1990.

When the Lakers moved from the Forum in nearby Inglewood to the downtown Staples Center in 1999, the press room was named in Hearn's honor.
He has been immortalized with a star on Hollywood's "Walk of Fame"


yakob at 11:26 PM

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