Jack Fox:
Well it is Wednesday, April 11th, 2012. I am Jack Fox and I am sitting here with
one of the legends of broadcasting in Kentucky and certainly WHAS, Van Vance. How you doing Van?Van Vance:
Doing great Jack. You've invited me here to talk about working at WHAS.
Jack Fox:
You were at WHAS for how many years?
Van Vance:
42 years.
Jack Fox:
42.
Van Vance:
There's nothing more pleasant than remembering my years at WHAS.
Jack Fox:
What was your last year there? When did you leave then?
Van Vance:
I left '99, I retired full-time.
Jack Fox:
.... what year you came? In 19-
Van Vance:
1957 actually when I started.
Jack Fox:
1957. First of all, you're not from Louisville, where are you from?
Van Vance:
Well I was born in the Park City, Mammoth Cave area. I tell people I was born in
a cave because that land down there is full of caverns. You might have a field one day and a have a corn crop the next day, it would be a hole in the ground.Jack Fox:
Were you from a farm?
Van Vance:
Yeah I grew up on a farm about two miles from Park City. And then when I was
1:00about 13 or 14 I lived with my aunt. She was my counselor and guidance counselor. I lived with her. My aunt and uncle. About two and a half miles out in the country.Jack Fox:
That's a long way from doing a Final Four in the Super Dome in New Orleans.
Van Vance:
Yeah and the amazing thing, when I was a freshman in high school I was a
starting guard on the second team we called it, it was the JV team.Jack Fox:
At Park City High School?
Van Vance:
Yeah. And when I would play, I didn't have a ride to the games at Park City.
It's about two and a half miles, to show you how you would get in shape in those days and how you were excited about playing basketball. Sometimes I would run the two and a half miles to Park City and then play in the gym that night. Or if 2:00i had to catch the bus to go to an away game. And I never got tired. I went and played a full game.Jack Fox:
Wow. And then had to walk or run home. Did you run home?
Van Vance:
Believe it or not I usually got a ride home, especially if I had a good game.
Jack Fox:
How tall are you Van?
Van Vance:
I'm about 6'2.
Jack Fox:
You were pretty tall back then in that time weren't you? That's pretty tall for then.
Van Vance:
Right, and handled a ball pretty well so I used to-
Jack Fox:
You could've even played center back then.
Van Vance:
Yeah I did play center a lot. I lead the fast break. I was known as Van Hawk Eye
Vance when I was in high school.Jack Fox:
Because you were a good shooter?
Van Vance:
Yeah I scored 22 points a game my last two years in high school. I was pretty
well known in what was then the fifth region. And what happened is, of all of my achievements in basketball, my height point night was 39 one night. I kind of brag about this because of career of playing and covering basketball, and actually in latter years seeing men who were making over a million dollars a year, could not hit a free throw. One night I made 34 points and I brag about 3:00this a little bit, I'm not modest about this. I made 34 points, I had 18 free throws and hit all 18 of them in the game, which I'm rather proud of.Jack Fox:
If you calculate that into today's dollars, we'd be doing this in the Cayman
Islands today wouldn't we?Van Vance:
Right. And they did not have the bonus then. If they'd have had the bonus I
would've had a real big scoring night. But anyhow, what happened to me is, I played basketball and my final game was at Allan County High School and we lost to Glasgow. And the man who was broadcasting for WKAY in Glasgow was a man by the name of Jack Eversole, who was from Louisville, had attended the University of Kentucky and came back to Glasgow and was the manager of the station. I'm very disappointed, I'm in the dressing room after the game, my career is over, I had been recruited by a lot of colleges and had a chance to go and play basketball at several places, Kentucky Western, Tennessee Tech, Louisville 4:00wanted me to come and try out, Western was interested, Lindsey Wilson, a junior college and Columbia, a junior college. Or another junior college.Van Vance:
I know Lindsey Wilson was one of them. But anyhow, Jack Eversole came to the
dressing room and said, "You know Van, you entered that I Speak for Democracy contest and you came to our radio station and recorded that speech." And at that time I was about 17/18 years old, had about the same voice that I have now believe it or not. And the day that I recorded that speech, all of the contestants from the Baron County High Schools were in the studio. And I noticed some older men looking through the window, big picture window with a big microphone, when I started reading my speech.Jack Fox:
They heard that voice.
Van Vance:
And so he said, "We heard your speech and we think you should be in radio. Are
5:00you interested?" And I said yes.Jack Fox:
Had you thought about it before at that point?
Van Vance:
No. I did play by play a lot sometimes when I was playing basketball by myself
or with the guys. I would recreate games that I'd heard on the radio of Western games, Western, U of L or Kentucky.Jack Fox:
You listened to radio then.
Van Vance:
Oh yeah I was a big radio fan and I listened to music. So he said, "Will you
come to the radio station in Glasgow next week and we'll talk about it and we'll start you out." So I did. I started on Sunday's, playing music and introducing ministers on Sunday morning and reading baseball scores, and that began my career. Well I enrolled at Western Kentucky University and I was driving all the way from Park City to Bowling Green, back to Glasgow. Quite a trip. Busy young 6:00man. And Mr. Eversole got a job at WKCT in Bowling Green and eventually had me transfer down there with him, that way I didn't have to drive. I lived in Bowling Green. I was walking in the radio station at Bowling Green WKCT, owned by the Park City Daily News newspaper. And a car pulls up and it's uncle Ed Diddle.Van Vance:
One of his players was chauffeuring him. He was a famous coach of the Western
Hill Toppers, the man with the red towel. And he said, "Vance, come over here. I want to talk to you. What are you doing?" I said, "I'm going to work." And he said, "You don't have to work to go to school, you can come up and play on my basketball team." And I said, "No I like my radio work." I tell people now, I realized I wasn't going to be another Doctor J and that I better get a career. And that's the great thing about Jack Eversole, he didn't just give me a job, he gave me a career. 7:00Jack Fox:
Wow. That's quite a statement.
Van Vance:
Yeah. For young people or for anybody who's thinking about getting a job when
you're young, try to go into something that's going to give you a career.Jack Fox:
So he was a mentor to you?
Van Vance:
It's unbelievable what he did for me. Paved my life ahead for me. Anyhow, he
said, "You come up." Mr. Diddle had had a heart attack and he'd been to Florida and Ted Hornback was coaching the team, so he was rather inactive although he was still the head coach.Jack Fox:
He knew about you from your playings days then.
Van Vance:
He sure did. He and a man who recruited a lot for him, Big Six Henderson had
recruited me some. I had one up and he said, "You can play on the team and then when you have to go to work you go ahead, and go to your basketball practice and everything will be okay." I played my freshman year the second semester. You could not play in the games. It was illegal for freshman to play at that time. They were not eligible.Jack Fox:
No one had done it.
Van Vance:
Right. Anyhow, when I completed that year, we talked it over and I said, "I
8:00don't think I'm going to play that much." And he said, "I'm going to need your room." And he we came to an agreement. I went to Lebanon, Kentucky, and worked with a couple of friends that I had known at Glasgow, who'd started their own station. I worked there a month or two and then transferred to the University of Kentucky and auditioned and landed a job at WVLK in Lexington. I also became the backup sportscaster to Claude Sullivan, who was a well known broadcaster in Kentucky.Jack Fox:
He had the UK games.
Van Vance:
He sure did. He had the standard oil, University of Kentucky network. Later
became the voice of the Cincinnati Reds. But anyhow, about 1957 I sent an audition to George Walsh at WHAS in Louisville. They had an opening as an announcer or a sportscaster. And I wound up getting the job as a backup 9:00sportscaster and a full-time announcer.Jack Fox:
Did you have to do an audition? What was your audition like?
Van Vance:
I did an audition, I sent a tape and they called me in in person. And there were
three key men involved in WHAS operation at the Courier-Journal Building.Jack Fox:
I'd think they were still at Sixth and Chestnut then.
Van Vance:
Yeah. Radio was on the fifth floor. I'm sorry, the offices and the cafeteria
were on the fifth floor and the radio studios were on the sixth floor and television was on the seventh floor. I came to WHAS and three men auditioned me in person. Sam Gifford, Paul Clark who was the Chief of announcers at WHAS, and George Walsh, who was the Program Director and was still doing a lot of sports. George Walsh had been the broadcaster of the Philadelphia Fillies baseball team in the national league when he was in Philadelphia, and was one of the top 10:00broadcasters play by play in the major leagues.Jack Fox:
I didn't realize that.
Van Vance:
No doubt about that. Yeah. And he left that job and came onto WHAS radio to be a
sportscaster, he did UK basketball and football. When they wanted to move him upstairs, they made him Program Director and then they hired Cawood Ledford to come in and do play by play. George still did the football for two or three years after Cawood came here. But Cawood took over the basketball. Anyhow, what happens is George Walsh was a key man in my development at WHAS. He kind of became my supervisor and my mentor. They hired me and I came here as an announcer. 11:00Jack Fox:
In 1957.
Van Vance:
In June, 1957. On the first day I rode the elevator up to the sixth floor to
report in for work, and I had had to do a television audition for them at that time. Phyllis Knight and Sam Gifford, or Phyllis and Sam Gifford, they got on the elevator with me and they had just come back from their honeymoon and it was their first day back.Jack Fox:
Wow. Two strong influences at WHAS in those days.
Van Vance:
At that time, WHAS had nine men on the announce staff and Paul Clark was the
Chief announcer. He made out the schedule for both radio and television. On that announce staff were legends. Jim Walton, Sam Algood, Ray Shelton, Bill Britain, Milton Metz. They used Cactus Tom Brooks. He had to put his teeth in when he did 12:00the announcing. And also a man named Bob Lawson. I think I've included most of them.Jack Fox:
Wow that's a strong line up.
Van Vance:
Yeah it was really. And a lot of them not only were announcers, they were
personalities at the time.Jack Fox:
What was the program day like? What would make up a program for you.
Van Vance:
Well WHAS radio at that time was really a high level operation. I would say it
was heavily news, they had soap operas were still on the air at that time. I don't remember the name of them but they were famous a lot of them. Hellen Trent or something. All of those famous. But WHAS was, in the morning they had the country music on. Shorty Chester had a radio show for an hour. Then we would have a lot of news, and then Randy Atcher and a group sometimes would be on for a few minutes. And then Jim Walton hosted a Fun Fair PM which had its own live combo and live singers.Jack Fox:
It was on afternoons or-
Van Vance:
No it was on in the morning. Fun fair AM. Or they just called it Fun Fair at
13:00that time. Then HAS would go through the day with more soap operas after the noon news and farm... Barney Arnold was a big guy, with 30 minutes of farm broadcast.Jack Fox:
[crosstalk 00:13:12] signal together.
Van Vance:
Right. You better believe it. And then in the afternoon they'd have a few more
soap operas. And then they had an afternoon music show. Tiny Thomeo, a piano player, did that.Jack Fox:
It was live then.
Van Vance:
Right. But he played records.
Jack Fox:
Oh he played records.
Van Vance:
And then in the evening, you talk about a strong news and documentary type
lineup, at 5:45, Lowell Thomas. And then at 6:45, Edward R. Moral. Then at seven o'clock, Douglas Edwards and the world tonight. A 30 minute news program with all of those famous reporters. All of the most famous of the CBS [inaudible]. People like that would be featured. And then early on, Milton Metz, they put him 14:00on Juniper 52385 or whatever the name of that program, later became Metz Here. And then a lot of times I would do an 11 to midnight show which was called Music for Tonight. And you could come on, the night is old, the night is young, the moon is made of music. And then you'd play about 15 minutes of music. Real nice, smooth music.Jack Fox:
Did you select the music?
Van Vance:
No. We had a full-time record library staff. At the time I first went to HAS
they selected all of the music.Jack Fox:
Really?
Van Vance:
That was my first phase of my being at WHAS radio.
Jack Fox:
What were your other duties? Did you have an addition to that program? As an
announcer, what did you do?Van Vance:
I read some news, I did commercials on the news, I did commercials. At 10:15 at
night, they had the 10 o'clock news with Pete French, who was the biggest name 15:00in news on radio and television in Louisville when I arrived. Pete French was a legendary newscaster. And then at 10:15, Cawood usually did the sports at that time. I did the commercials, did the announcing on those shows.Jack Fox:
Did you do breaks like in the soap operas?
Van Vance:
Yeah I would do station breaks. Yeah. And then I read some newscasts, the
shorter five minutes on a half hour type newscasts.Jack Fox:
Let me one other question. You talk about all these legendary people there, did
you all interact or were your shifts so different you didn't see other people? Was there a lot of camaraderie between all the announce staff?Van Vance:
I had an unusual shift. I was the junior member. I started out signing on the
station. The station signed off at 12:05. My first day to work sometimes was like on a Tuesday or something. I would start, I'd sign on the station at five 16:00o'clock in the morning, and on my fifth day at work, I would sign off the station at 12:05 at night.Jack Fox:
Was your sign on and sign off consistent? Did you have to read something?
Van Vance:
Yeah, this is WHAS, only operated 50,000 watts per channel. Owned and operated
by the Courier Journal, Louisville Times, a Bingham Corporation. All that stuff. One of the unusual things that happened, at 6:30 in the morning they had a five minute news guest. Paul Clark was a featured voice, and what a voice he was and a great newscaster on the longer newscasts, the 15 minutes. And then they had a short one at 6:30. And when one of the newscasters who wrote and read those newscasts would go on vacation, Bill Small, who was a News Director, would come in and substitute for that newscaster. Bill Small was the News Director of radio 17:00and television. And he wrote this five minute newscast for me and I look back at that and it's really this great memory of how fluently he would write that newscast. It would just roll out when you read it. And it was right on the money.Van Vance:
He later became News Director for one of the three major networks, both radio
and television. He was quite a news man. And then he was also the CEO of Associated Press after he left that major... And last I heard of Bill Small, I don't know, I think he's still alive, he was teaching journalism at Fordham or one of the Universities in New York.Jack Fox:
And well qualified.
Van Vance:
I brag about the fact that a News Director, high executive in both NBC and CBS
and actually was head of the whole news division for several years, used to 18:00write little five minute newscasts for Van Vance. I hope people can take this as a lighter side, on the music for the night when I did that, one time Milton Metz was on his call in show, which was the first one in Louisville. And he got a call from a woman, she said, "I love listening to your program Mr. Metz and I also listen to the station. I go to bed with Van Vance every night after he does Music for Tonight. I hear him sign off." We laughed about that. But anyhow, the second era for me, George Walsh liked my work. Victor Ray Scholis was the manager and the man that ran WHAS at that time.Van Vance:
And George Walsh called me in and said, "We want to put you on the afternoon
music show. And we're going to make a change there and we're going to call it Fun Fair PM." Because Jim Walton had been so successful, and he was the top 19:00personality on the station. He was the man that did the morning show, and then when they started the Crusade for Children, he was the MC for that.Jack Fox:
Sure yeah. So everybody knew him.
Van Vance:
He was the biggest name, he and Pete French, when I came to HAS. They were the
real big dogs, let me tell you. Ray Shelton was the voice of television.Jack Fox:
Yeah.
Van Vance:
Anyhow, they put me on Fun Fair PM. We played more of easy music, we did not
play rock and roll, because about that time Wacky came into town and they started playing rock and roll.Jack Fox:
This would've been late 50's, early 60's?
Van Vance:
Yeah early 60's, ;ate 50's. Wacky came in and the rock and roll became more and
more of its own identity. I went on the Fun Fair PM show. John Cunningham was my producer. He spent a lot of his workday preparing material for me to read and setting up interviews and stuff like that.Jack Fox:
How did that physically work? Were you in one room, he in another, you just sat
at a desk and read?Van Vance:
No. He would do all of the material and hand it to me in a manila folder, and
then I would-Jack Fox:
Did you operate the turn tables and do-
20:00Van Vance:
No. I had engineers. I didn't touch any equipment besides turn my microphone on.
Jack Fox:
Yeah. You remember who any of the engineers were?
Van Vance:
Yeah. At that time most of the microphones in the big studios, when Randy Atcher
and them, they had engineers that even turned them on then. But in our little announce booth, I turned on my own microphones. A lot of our engineers had come back from World War II, they were older men. Carl Nilsson, Butch Toon, Norman Brown, Ken Maddox later.Jack Fox:
Oh yeah. Was Harold D. Armin in there?
Van Vance:
Harold D. Armin was one of the best. He was one of the best audio men and did
the Crusade and did the Hayloft Ho down type shoes or did the Randy Atcher. They had a Saturday night barn dance. Just a great audio man. By anyhow, these men 21:00were the engineers. I related to them and the fact that they kind of helped me being a new announcer, and they were important on the afternoon program. And when I got to HAS, the engineers kind of had a rule that they would not let a record go until you gave the name of an artist and then the title. That became pretty old when you're doing a three hour show. I was the first guy who began to bring in music and talk over it and time out the intros. I had an engineer too who really worked with me. It sounded good. The station liked it. And before long most of the engineers were doing... 22:00Van Vance:
Some of the old guys, the rule was, and they had a pretty good union, we're back
into that thing a little bit. They were IBEW.Jack Fox:
Yeah, so you were one of the first guys to do that though. Talk over the music.
Van Vance:
I was the first to do it on the 10 second intro and then a guy would come up
singing, or the lady. Like I said we played mostly middle of the road time music. And so here come the Beatles and they're coming to the United States and they're going to be on Ed Sullivan.Jack Fox:
Sure.
Van Vance:
We played two Beatles records in particular. We played All my Loving and
Michele. We didn't play back in the USA and we didn't play the Yellow Submarine. Some of those we did not play.Jack Fox:
More melodic things you did. Lyrical and melodic.
Van Vance:
Yeah. One of the top people in my show, Milton Metz came in and did a weather
report at 4:30 and he talked. And he was great. He was funny, we had people who wrote mail and asked us to talk about things or react to that. And Cawood would come up and do sports, he and Dave Martin. In the meantime I was a backup sportscaster.Jack Fox:
Let me ask you one quick, how long was your program on and what time frame?
23:00Van Vance:
It was on from three until about six at that time.
Jack Fox:
Okay. Excuse me.
Van Vance:
Anyhow, when the state tournament would come along, Cawood would go off to the
NCAA or he'd do part of the state tournament. I did some television, high school basketball, I did the state tournament, begin to work on the derby some. I wound up doing 40 some derbies. I became identified somewhat with sports.Jack Fox:
And you were okay with that. You enjoyed that.
Van Vance:
Yeah. When I would broadcast the Sweet 16, the state tournament, the station got
a lot of reaction and I did too. People would say, "Hey I heard you. I loved that game." And I would do the championship game and they would say, "Why don't you go over to sports?" So Cawood even called me in a couple of times. In the 24:00meantime he had become Sports Director and George Walsh was manager of WHAS radio. I talked to Cawood , but they didn't offer me much extra money. It would've been about the same thing. Here I was featured in the afternoon. We never really got anywhere with that, or never made a final decision and so I never switched over, so I'd go back and do my announcing on radio and TV. And Sam Gifford retired off of High Varieties. And he selected me to be the host of what was really their top television show of the week. An hour long variety show for young people, a Dick Clark type show that also had the Crusade for Children king and queen contest and things like that.Van Vance:
I never made the move over.
Jack Fox:
They were all still in the same building at this time. Still at the
Courier-Journal Building.Van Vance:
Right. We were still there. And one thing that happened on my music show, back
25:00in the 60's Cassius Clay went to the Olympics and he won a gold medal and he came back, and he was going to be on Milton Metz' program, he was several times. He would come in a few minutes early. And on time he had made a record called Stand by Me, it was a hit by Bennie King I think, but he made his version of it and he brought it with him. I brought him in the studio about 15 minutes before he was going to go on with Milton, and interviewed him. We played the record. I'll never forget, when he came back from the Olympics, he was sitting in the lobby out watching TV and he had his arms, his palms were turned upward and he had two arms on the support, the chair support. And Larry Beck who was a famous sports writer for the Courier Journal, was there and Milton was there. And you look down, and of all the athletes I've ever interviewed, Pete Rose, Johnnie Bench and Muhammad Ali had the most humongous forearms. Just as solid as a rock. 26:00Van Vance:
And Ali's were big, like hamhocks practically. And Larry Beck reaches down and
he squeezes Cassius Clay, at that time we called him Cassius. He squeezed his forearm and said, "Man, look at the forearms you've got there Cassius. How'd you get those? Weights?" He said, "No man. Steaks."Jack Fox:
He was fast with a quip wasn't he?
Van Vance:
Yeah. He was quite a character. He would go on Milton's show and we would listen
and it was pretty fantastic broadcasting at that time. But anyhow, I stayed with the Afternoon Fun Fair PM, and the show did pretty well, went along pretty well. And a man came to WHAS. In latter years we got a Radio Manager named Hugh BarrAnd WHAS radio at that time had been, like I said, a highly documentary, a 27:00great public service station. WHAS is so much a part of Kentucky and Louisville. It was unbelievable to me. I've never seen any stations that identified more with their community that our station did. And it should because the Bingham's when they owned that station, sometimes I said it looks to me is our first is public service, our second is news and informing and our third is this and that, and fourth is making money. They did devote a lot of money and effort, the Bingham's.Van Vance:
They were not a bottom line operation. They became more of a bottom line
operation later on.Jack Fox:
Out of necessity.
Van Vance:
Yeah they had to. But it was quite a unique operation let me tell you. Anyhow,
when Hugh Barr came to WHAS-Jack Fox:
When did Hugh come? Middle to late 60's? Somewhere along there.
Van Vance:
More in the 60's. It was in the 60's. When he came to WHAS, he changed the
28:00station. He brought it into the modern era of broadcasting.Jack Fox:
In what way?
Van Vance:
Well we began to go all music because of the budget and this, that.
Jack Fox:
And he was the Program Director at WHAS or the Manager?
Van Vance:
The Manager. He came in and took over both jobs you might say. He hired Wayne
Perky. He hired eventually Jack Fox.Jack Fox:
Eventually yeah.
Van Vance:
He hired Dave McKree and later John Donovan. The morning, Wayne Perky and
recording, we began to do more stuff like traffic and more emphasis on weather. And Hugh Barrwas a stickler for the sound that went on the air. He believed in a little bit of reverb and echo and he had weekly meetings, he had your programs recorded, he'd call you in and do critiques on your work every week.Jack Fox:
Would it be fair to say that just before Hugh came, radio had been very
29:00prominent but it had kind of almost taken a lower step than television? Television had come on and become very prominent by that time. Is that right? Or maybe other stations, the WAKYs and KLO's had come on and had taken the radio thunder.Van Vance:
Yeah. It was a changing business. The teenagers had gone with the rock and roll
stations and it began to fracture and split up.Jack Fox:
They wanted more than Michele and-
Van Vance:
Right. Yeah they did. But anyhow, Hugh Barr, it's amazing, he set the whole
foundation for WHAS radio, of what it was, actually for the next almost 20 years or more. In fact when I retired from WHAS in '99, either through some of the personnel still there and a lot of the tendencies and things they were doing on the air were still remnants that Hugh Barr established.Jack Fox:
He kind of carved out a new identity for the radio station.
Van Vance:
Right. That he did. And more of less made it a modern era type broadcast.
30:00Jack Fox:
Still community oriented and that sort of thing.
Van Vance:
Right. Yeah. He went for a little different type. In the old days we were
announcers and we were a little more formal and this and that. It was just changing. But that was my-Jack Fox:
How were you involved in that? What did you do in that?
Van Vance:
I had gone off of the afternoon show, and he came in, and not long after he was
there he brought me back and put me back in the afternoon. A man named Ed Shadburne we had put channel 32, WLKY, on television here, was hired by the Bingham's to run WHAS radio and television. And Ed Shadburne heard me do the state tournament and he stopped me and he said, "We're getting a lot of good reaction to your sports work." And he said, "I know you're a personality, you're playing music and you're on in the afternoon." He said, "Basically that's a 31:00young mans game. There's going to come a time when you're probably not going to be the man to be doing that. I think you ought to be in sports full-time and that would be a longer career for you." And this and that. And I said, "Cawood has talked to me about that before but they've never offered me enough money or anything to persuade me to go over there." He said, "Well let me talk to Cawood . We'll see if we can work something out."Van Vance:
I kind of felt bad because I was very loyal to Hugh Barr and I liked working for
him. Not only a great radio executive, but just a very fine human being. Anyhow, Cawood called me in and really it was like you'd almost have to go to another station or change markets. I had a new career all of a sudden, and salary status and everything.Jack Fox:
Wow. So you would be working for radio or television?
Van Vance:
I'd be working for sports. I became full-time sports.
32:00Jack Fox:
You did both.
Van Vance:
Which was both radio and television yeah.
Jack Fox:
Okay. Okay.
Van Vance:
About a month or two after I went to full-time sports, we landed the Kentucky
Colonels contracts which has been on WAVE in-Jack Fox:
Which was an American Basketball Association protein.
Van Vance:
Within a month and a half or two months, here I am a pro broadcaster, which
started in September. That was even another boost financially because every time I had a basketball game I got a talent fee for that. And boy they play a lot of games in the pros. Including the playoffs, which in first year we went to the seventh and deciding playoff in Salt Lake City, Utah. I did a hundred and some basketball games that year. And here a kid that grew up playing basketball all his life, what else could you ask for?Jack Fox:
It was great. Yeah. Who were some of the stars at that time in the ABA that you remember?
Van Vance:
We landed the contract the year that Dan Issel and Mike Pratt signed with the
33:00Kentucky Colonels.Jack Fox:
That would've been what, about 19-
Van Vance:
1970/1971.
Jack Fox:
Okay.
Van Vance:
And Jean Rhodes was the coach, but they let him go. That was a lot of
controversy. And hired Frank Ramsey. And we went to the seventh and deciding championship game and lost it to Utah Stars out in Salt Lake City.Jack Fox:
Frank Ramsey had been a star at UK years ago and then with the Boston Celtics.
Van Vance:
Yeah and then the Boston Celtics. Yeah. Anyhow, that was the beginning of a new
era for me, working in sports with Cawood Ledford. And I was kind of the Kentucky Colonel play by play, he did the UK and then we did the radio and TVs. We had a guy named Walt Adams who also worked with us, and we had a photographer. And the Patty was our secretary. She was the farm and sports secretary at the time at the station. And I loved it. I had a great career, but 34:00I was working like seven days a week. The pros, we would travel all over the country. I might be in Louisville today, in New York tonight and Dallas tomorrow, and two days later in San Diego.Jack Fox:
Some new experiences though didn't you. Wow.
Van Vance:
Traveled around the world. I tell people I've been around the world twice and
spoken to everybody once.Jack Fox:
Well now that was during the... What about in the off season though?
Van Vance:
Well there wasn't much. The first year I was not able to work on the derby a
couple of years as much as I wanted to. I worked during derby week because we were still in the playoffs in the ABA. The day Secretariat had won the Kentucky derby, the Colonels and the Pacers were featured on CBS television that day. One of the championship games up in Indianapolis, Dan Issel and I drive back to a 35:00restaurant in South of Indianapolis, turn on WHAS and listen to Secretariat winning the derby, broadcast by Cawood .Jack Fox:
Wow. Yeah.
Van Vance:
I was a really busy sportsman, let me tell you that.
Jack Fox:
But it was all Colonels at that point basically. You didn't have time to do much
else did you?Van Vance:
That's right. But I did do this. I remember one time I got on an airplane,
American Airline, in the morning in San Diego because they're two hours behind us, or three hours behind us out there. I started early morning in San Diego and I flew into Louisville and did the 10:15 sports on radio that night. With all the jet lag that goes with it at that same time.Jack Fox:
Oh my goodness. Wow.
Van Vance:
I go along until 1975, and one of the unusual things about being the voice of
the Kentucky Colonels that was very enjoyable, I had both Louisville Cardinals 36:00and Kentucky Colonels on my basketball team. I mean the Kentucky Wildcats and the Louisville Cardinals. So the fans both UK and the Louisville fans loved Van Vance because I was for both of them. They identified me with Dan Issel, Louis Dampier, Ron Thomas, Allan Murphy. When I became the voice of the Louisville Cardinals. I lost a lot of the UK fans in latter years. And my last two years of doing the Kentucky Colonels, and Kentucky sports... If you did the Kentucky Wildcats for being sportscaster of the year, you had it whipped. One year Cawood told me, he said, "Van this year I won. Ralph Hacker [inaudible 00:36:48] was second, and John Ferguson, he was just the guy down on the field that said on a field goal when they flipped a coin, it's head, Kentucky one the toss or the 37:00field goal is good. He came in third in sportscaster of the year."Jack Fox:
And here's Van doing all these games everywhere.
Van Vance:
But anyhow, in '75 and '76 I won sportscaster of the year because some of the
Lexington writers and broadcasters voted for me. But when I became the voice of the Cardinals-Jack Fox:
They didn't vote for you. You didn't get any votes.
Van Vance:
Out of Lexington. And that was kind of funny. Cawood and I would laugh about
that. That was '75 and '76. The Colonels, it was their final year. They leave and John Wyatt does not go into the NBA and I'm Van Vance, the man without a team. I kept telling people I'm going to do Sullivan Business College next year. Anyhow, in 1978, Ed Shadburne had come there and he's trying to get the U of L contract. He'd been trying to get it ever since he came to WHAS. And we finally landed it in 1978 for television. But I only did like seven or eight games on 38:00channel 11. Not enough to really even get your style-Jack Fox:
But you're still working at WHAS at this point?
Van Vance:
Yeah and I'm doing basic sports. And then I began to work with Gary Burbank,
we'll talk more about him, in the afternoon and people like that. Finally in 1981/1982, the year after Reed hit the long shot and beat Louisville when they were defending champs, that next season I started doing the University of Louisville. Wound up going to the final four in New Orleans, in the Super Dome. We lost to Georgetown. Then in 1983 went to Albuquerque and we lost to the Slamma Jamma's after leading them by 15 points.Jack Fox:
That was Houston?
Van Vance:
Yeah. And then in 1986, three of the first five years I did U of L. I went to
the final four. I said, "This is easy. There's nothing to this." In '86 we won 39:00in all in Dallas reunion. And let me say this about coach Denny Crum. Do you realize that Louisville was the basket team of the 80's in the NCAA. You realize what Denny Crum did in the state of Kentucky. He came in here, he surpassed the UK basketball program during that decade. Although they won the championship in '78 under Joe Hall. I'm not taking anything away from them. But the only time that Louisville has surpassed UK and won those championships was during Denny Crum's era. You look back on that now, since '86 they haven't won one at the time we're making this interview. It's pretty amazing what he did.Jack Fox:
Yeah. And a gentleman too. Great guy.
Van Vance:
A great man, a great man to work with. I can't say enough about him overall. I
have been involved with three of the major sports teams at universities in the state. I worked in Bowling Green, went to school at Western, played basketball, 40:00went to UK, worked in Lexington and attended university. And then my association with the University of Louisville went on for-Jack Fox:
And legendary coaches. Ed Diddle, Adolf Rupp was at Kentucky when you were
there, and then Denny Crum.Van Vance:
Right. And then came and worked with Denny Crum here in Louisville as well. I
tell people that I had the greatest career and the best life that anybody could ever have, with all that I went through. And then winning the NCAA in 1986, but it became very difficult to get back. I never went to another final four.Jack Fox:
You should tell me, the 19, was it '82 in New Orleans, that was the first final
four in the Super Dome?Van Vance:
In the Super Dome. Yeah. It was an unbelievable scene there. Around 70,000
people in that gigantic edifice. And Kentucky has just won it this year and I'm 41:00looking at pictures of that and I'd forgotten how immense of span that is inside. And I'll never forget, there were fans up in those higher rise, there's no way they could see the game. Now they have big screens up there for them, back then they didn't. And I looked up and there were two coveys of pigeons flying around in the top of the dome. But those were my highlights. The Colonels winning the ABA in 1975, working with Hubie Brown, Dan Issel, Artis Gilmore and then of course Denny Crum and the Cardinals winning it all at reunion in the year 1986. Those are great memories, let me tell you.Jack Fox:
You didn't have a color person with the ABA games. Did you have the-
Van Vance:
I did on television. On the television reports, an ex player Walt Simon worked
with me.Jack Fox:
Oh yeah. Played for the Colonels.
Van Vance:
Yeah. And he had come back here and was working for Kentucky Fried Chicken and
those organizations that owned that and was a great guy Walt, and was a good 42:00color man. But he only worked with me on television.Jack Fox:
But on the U of L games, radio you had-
Van Vance:
I started with Jack Tenant. He was a great guy.
Jack Fox:
He was a U of L guy wasn't he?
Van Vance:
Yeah. He was an Assistant Athletic Director. Then later on I worked with Jock
Sutherland, and later I'm going to talk about some of the people with whom I worked. We'll come back to Jock.Jack Fox:
Okay.
Van Vance:
But anyhow, I wound up my career at WHAS basically broadcasting sports. I did
around 42 derbies, I did the Fiesta Bowl, which up until Louisville won the Orange Bowl, was the highlight of the whole... Beating Alabama. Yeah that was an unbelievable time.Jack Fox:
It was, Howard Schnellenburger was the coach.
Van Vance:
Right. Best coached football team for that one game I've ever seen. I was the
43:00host on a Sports Talk program which they put on the air back around 1982. And during that Fiesta Bowl hoopla all of that, our telephones would start ringing at six o'clock and we didn't even go on the air until seven. It was one of the most hectic, interesting times for Sports Talk.Jack Fox:
Did you do the first Sports Talk program in the evening there?
Van Vance:
The first one it was done in Louisville, it started in-
Jack Fox:
In the 70's then.
Van Vance:
Right.
Jack Fox:
How long did you do that Van? For several years.
Van Vance:
Yeah I did it until around 1996. '95/'96.
Jack Fox:
I have to tell you one great story that I remember. I have a lot of stories, but
I remember one time a guy calling up and said, "Van, I'm like your program and I love all the bit, but I wish y'all would give the wrestling results." I don't remember this or not, Van said, "Well I'm sorry, but some people think they already know who's going to win." And the guy said, "Well maybe they do but I don't. I'd like to hear them anyway." It was a classic.Van Vance:
Well I've had a lot of unusual things happen on that Sports Talk program.
44:00Basically the popularity of that program was built on basketball and on basketball recruiting.Jack Fox:
Yeah football is not particular big around here.
Van Vance:
No, not for that. Because we just weren't winning that many games. Neither
Kentucky nor Louisville. But one of the great sports administrators in the history of Louisville, I have to say that Bill Olsen, Mike Storen who ran the Kentucky Colonels, and A. Ray Smith, are the three sports executives with whom I worked.Jack Fox:
A. Ray Was with-
Van Vance:
Red Birds. [inaudible] brought him and had a million people the first year
attend the minor league games.Jack Fox:
Out at the old stadium there at the Fairgrounds.
Van Vance:
I had A. Ray on my Sports Talk one night and he said, "Who you got on your
program tomorrow night?" And I said, "Well A. Ray, I've got... I'm open line. I 45:00don't have a guest tomorrow night." And he said, "How'd you like to have Keith Hernandez?" Well at that time Keith Hernandez had won the national league, most valuable player award and with the St. Louis Cardinals. I said, "Are you kidding me?" I said, "No he's coming to see me tomorrow. You like to have him on your show?" I said yeah. He said, "What time you want him down here?" And I said, "7:05 til 9:00." He said, "Well my chauffer will deliver him right here to the studio for you at 7:05."Van Vance:
So Keith Hernandez comes in, a great guy, and this beautiful young girlfriend
came with him and sat in the studio. And we're talking, a great lot of calls coming in, we're talking a lot about baseball and sports. And about 8:30 at night I get a call and it said, "Van."Van Vance:
"Yeah?"
Van Vance:
"This is Jimmy Jesse over in Cynthiana, Kentucky. How do you think the Cats are
going to do next year?" Cracked me up. It's hard to get away from the basketball. But one time Louisville and Kentucky were going to the final four or 46:00were winning a lot in the NCAA. But I would bring Jim Strader on and talk hunting a fishing, fishing in particular. I would bring Larry Nectar on and talk NASCAR. We were way ahead of our time on NASCAR and I took a lot of beating from management and from those basketball fans. They didn't like it when I put Strader I put the NASCAR on a night or two because they wanted to hear that basketball every night. During the Summer, the recruitings. You didn't have the internet then. One night a guy calls me up and he said, "Van, when are you going to get back to talking about what got you where you are?" I knew what he meant, he wanted to go back to the basketball.Jack Fox:
That's funny.
Van Vance:
That show had of course, it had the Rick Pitino coaches show or Denny Crum,
Howard Schnellenburger, Bill Curry, the different coaches, as they came along they also were featured on certain nights on that show. 47:00Jack Fox:
Well Van you've had 42 years at WHAS. That's several eras there too. And you've
had a lot of people that have been just legends here in Kentucky broadcasting that you've had the opportunity to work with. You've had influence on some of them, and some of them had influence on you. Who are some of those people?Van Vance:
Well of course I mentioned Jim Walton who was kind of Mr. WHAS when I went
there. A man that I always admired, I idolize him, is Milton Metz. It was great to work alongside Milton and to know him and play tennis with him. He was quite a competitor. And he is just an identity with HAS that, he came there in the 40's, I don't know if you realize that. But he was there for a long time.Jack Fox:
And when you were on with Sports Talk, your program budding right up to his.
Van Vance:
Right. And so he and I talked to one another, we went on trips together, he went
48:00along on some of the basketball final four trips to broadcast, especially in '83 when the dream game was played. He and broadcast live down in Knoxville from the hotel. Milton Metz, you only meet one like him in a lifetime. And you only meet one like Terry Meiners and Jock Sutherland in a lifetime, and Gary Burbank. A lot of people say, "How was your job? Did you like your work?" And I said, "Yeah, I spent have of my job and my life laughing at Gary Burbank, Terry Meiners and Jock Sutherland." That's not a job. That's not work. That's enjoying it.Jack Fox:
When Burbank and Meiners were on you did sports on their program. But it went
way beyond that didn't it?Van Vance:
Yeah it sure did.
Jack Fox:
You became a character on both their programs.
Van Vance:
Yeah. Gary Burbank started the Van Vance School of Dance, and then the Burt
Lance High School of Finance when Jimmy Carter was president. And he carried on 49:00all of that stuff. And then Terry Meiners came on and he had double V's. People still say, "Hey double V's." Or they call me Van. And the only thing that sticks to it is love.Jack Fox:
Those are Terry Meiner's?
Van Vance:
Yeah he had about 14 nicknames for me, including Mojo. That's the phrase that I
kind of started with him. He would play He's Got His Mojo Working when I would come on. And the thing with Terry Meiners is, there was no announcing, there was nothing fake, that was just the way it was.Jack Fox:
You just talked. Among other things.
Van Vance:
Yeah it was real life. Of course I mentioned Hugh Barr and how important he is
in the history of WHAS radio. Jock Sutherland was quite an individual with whom to work. Jock, I laughed at him so much. One time we went to New York and he called the New York subway and outhouse on wheels, was his term for it.Jack Fox:
What was Jock's background? He played basketball, he coached.
50:00Van Vance:
He played at Lafayette for Ralph Carlisle. And then he finally coaches at
Lafayette and then he won the state tournament in 1979.Jack Fox:
And then he coached in the college ranks too didn't he?
Van Vance:
Yeah he became an assistant to C.M Newton down at the University of Alabama and
recruited the first black player there who later became head of the dormitory that he moved in, the time he was a senior. A young player named Hunter. But Jock was certainly one of the most unusual individuals I ever met.Jack Fox:
Great sense of humor.
Van Vance:
And we had a Sports Talk program that used to get quite, it used to get quite
controversial. And one year-Jack Fox:
[crosstalk].
Van Vance:
Yeah. There again the telephones would start ringing when Jock was going to be
on, at six in the evening for a seven o'clock program. He came in one night, early in the year, and Kentucky had a powerhouse. They had Buie they had Turpin they had Minnefiel and Master, and I think Charles Herd on that team. And he said, "If Kentucky doesn't win the NCAA this year, they ought to turn Rupp Arena 51:00into a skating rink." You don't think that didn't get the telephone calls. And of course I'm trying to be an objective sportscaster.Jack Fox:
That was the days you would do this.
Van Vance:
And trying to play it down the middle, at the same time I was the voice of the U
of L Cards, but I had a lot of Kentucky background and a history of Kentucky basketball. I knew a lot about it from the time I grew up, so I tried to be objective. And later I brought Jim Master and Billie Donovan on to kind of balance up the Kentucky angle. But he was one of a kind Jock Sutherland. He told me one time, he said, "It's really great to show me Louisville where they show me five fingers. In Lexington they only show me one." I could tell you stories about Jock Sutherland all day long. He told somebody about me one time, he said, 52:00"That guy Vance over there, he may look like the rest of us but he's really from another planet." I wanted to say some great things about Wayne Perky. Hugh Barr brought him to WHAS and gave him the morning show, and he became a fixture in Louisville.Jack Fox:
30 years. Yeah.
Van Vance:
Yeah top ratings. And just his enthusiasm, his attitude and the way he treated
the people with whom he worked, I cannot say that I ever met a finer guy in broadcasting or a very fine broadcaster. I used to have a little trouble with Wayne when he would go on trips with me in the NCAA. I would do his engineering, setup his equipment. He would use my basketball equipment. I set him up in Hawaii. But his enthusiasm when I would be on with him sometimes, it was hard to keep up with him. I guess you worked with him and you know. Wayne really was into his job and his work. He's one of a kind, who came along here in 53:00Louisville. There have been many of them that I loved working with them and appreciated my career.Van Vance:
The people who affected me over all were Shadburne, Cawood Ledford. The thing I
loved about Cawood Ledford when I went to work for him at WHAS, the only time he just about he never won it in '75 and '76, I won the sportscaster of the year award. I went down to North Carolina to accept it, and Dave Kindred had won the sports writer of the year award.Jack Fox:
He was with the Courier-Journal at the time.
Van Vance:
And so Dave is down there and he says, "You know, I talked to Cawood about you
and he is real complimentary of your work. He said you're top of the line." Now he's a guy that really in a way we wee competing even though we worked together and he said good things about me like that. Well there was a time that Cawood, we ran into a little controversy one time of what they wanted me to do on the 54:00air, which would've taken me off the Kentucky Colonels, and I didn't want to do that. I had an identity and I had a job there. But there were some things going on and he said, "Van, I agree with you. That would be a bad decision." And he said, "If you feel that way, I'll go to the top front office and you and I will go as a group." He said, "Me doing UK and you doing the Colonels, we're a major part of this radio station. We're billing around $500,000 a year for WHAS radio, and if you and I don't want to do it, I don't think they're going to make us do it."Jack Fox:
Wow.
Van Vance:
He had a two way loyalty. He was not only loyal to the company, but he was also
loyal to his employees.Jack Fox:
That's a big thing yeah.
Van Vance:
And it really impressed me. One thing about Cawood, you know he wrote several
books. He loved to write. He would sit in that office in there and plan his books and what he was going to write. And even though he was on TV and radio, he loved to write his books and the things that he used in broadcasting. When I 55:00first came to HAS I worked the state tournament with George Walsh, and he had been a writer and was of the writer era. You will not believe what George Walsh did. Let's say Lafayette is playing Atherton in the championship game of the Kentucky High School Basketball Tournament. George Walsh, before he went on the air, would write a closing to that game in case Atherton won or in case Lafayette won. Whichever team won or lost.Van Vance:
Then of course in later days we didn't do anything like that. But that's how
thorough, how much writing was still important in broadcasting when I first came to WHAS. A lot of that had been caused by a guy named Jimmy Finnegan who had been a sports writer and who had worked at WHAS as a radio and television sportscaster. Jimmy Finnegan, he had a lot of expressions. He'd say, "Now in 56:00case you need me for anything, my name is Jimmy Finnegan. So long everybody." He had a lot of favorite expressions like that.Jack Fox:
Did he do some television too in the early days?
Van Vance:
He sure did.
Jack Fox:
I remember as a kid Van, living in Western Kentucky, in Henderson County, one of
the first televisions... This is in the early 50's, one of the first television sets in that little town. Gathering around all the kids on Saturday night, that antenna going up, snowy. But I remember Jimmy Finnegan being on-Van Vance:
Well that brought Jimmy Finnegan for Sunday night television football score
board. They decided to put on a program about 10:30 at night or 11:30. We had the 10 o'clock news in the old days, so I don't remember if it was still 10 or 11. Jimmy Finnegan was brought in to produce Paul Hogan. Hogan had never done radio and television, even though he had retired from the NFL. And Paul was pretty bad when he first started. Because here he walks into a studio, taking signals and have to do a 15 minute sports scoreboard and all of that with some 57:00tape film. And Jimmy Finnegan was put in charge of that to break Paul in, to set him up and school him and be his mentor. And that's the last time I remember Jimmy working in radio and TV. But Jimmy Finnegan at one time did the 5:15 and the 10:15 on WHAS radio. He did those two sportscasts and every word was written out.Van Vance:
And the announcer had to do one liners leading into his stories.
Jack Fox:
Wow.
Van Vance:
And one time he had a headline that said, "Austie Miler breaks four minute
mile." Austie Miler, and that was Rodger Banister or somebody. And the announcer who did the lead in said, "Aussie Miller breaks four minute mile." But that was 58:00Jimmy Finnegan. Jack it's been great to talk about WHAS. It's a great station, always has been and always will be. We've had some great people and some great events there.Jack Fox:
Yeah. Your 42 years was a great contribution.
Van Vance:
In the old days, the Crusade for Children, live from the State Fair, the state
tournament, the Kentucky Derby.Jack Fox:
Anything happening the station was there.
Van Vance:
That's right. And originally the derby was a one day event, then it became a
week event. And now it's what? A two month event. All right.Jack Fox:
Thanks Van. Van Vance.
