Loving the radio behind the scenes stories,
@Frog DJ
Admittedly, this is an act of shameless self-promotion, but if you love the behind the scenes stuff, my book is jam-packed with them, but here’s one that failed to make the cut.
When professional soccer was gaining a bit of popularity in the 1970s, Bart McLendon (Gordon’s son) wanted KNUS to do a promotion with the Dallas franchise, so our program director came up the idea to sprinkle cash on the pitch during the break between periods, and pick 10 lucky listeners to run out and grab as much money as they could in 99 seconds (we were “99” on the FM dial).
On game day, Dallas experienced high winds in the weather forecast, so while I was still on the air that morning, I alerted management that the money was likely to blow away. We came up the idea to wrap each bill in a small rock, and we spent ALL DAY anchoring each individual one, five, ten, twenty, fifty and hundred dollar bill using rocks from bags of large gauge gravel. The total amount of cash was several thousand dollars, but because the currency was wadded up around a rock, it was almost impossible to discern the denomination without picking it up first.
Of course, now the money was MUCH heavier, so we loaded it all into bags and distributed it across a huge portion of the pitch using a golf cart. Finally, the ten winners ran out, grabbed as much money as they could in 99 seconds, and then, we had to start picking up what was left on the pitch. This proved to be more tedious and time-consuming than we expected, and soon the referees were telling us they needed to resume play. As such, quite a few bills were still on the field when the match started up again.
We retreated to the stands to watch the action and the result was absolutely comical! Players soon realized the situation, so they would completely abandon the ball to pick up the randomly placed, remaining cash, and total chaos ensued. This was long before players were paid big salaries, so they saw an opportunity to literally “pick up” some significant extra money.
The crowd’s initial laughter turned into jeers, and eventually descended into hearty boos, but officials refused to suspend the match to clear the field (I’m pretty sure they picked up a few bills themselves). I turned to Bart McLendon and said, “Well, I think we’re gonna get some serious publicity out of this, but I’m not sure it’s gonna be good.” I was right. Over the next two days, KNUS was mentioned on Channels 4, 5 and 8, plus the Dallas Morning News, Times Herald and Star Telegram, and some of it was definitely NOT complimentary. Elston Brooks did give us a whimsical mention in his column, but he and I were long-time friends, and he LOVED that kind of story, anyway.
As a wise man once said, “You can’t make this stuff up!”
Go Frogs!
