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The Fastest Kid on the Block: The Marty Glickman Story (Sports and Entertainment)

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No recollection of sports broadcasting in the United States is complete without a nod to workhorse Marty Glickman, and thankfully Marty has done this work for us himself in his spirited autobiography, "The Fastest Kid on the Block." It is fitting that Glickman devoted his career to radio and television work, because in 1936 Glickman himself was the center of one of the great sports stories of his day, the 1936 Munich Olympics and his exclusion from competition in Hitler's Germany because of his Jewish descent.

Glickman was generally a man of considerable enthusiasms, and in this 1996 work his enjoyment and zeal for his life and career took considerable precedent over such things as logical order and structuring. Thus the work begins in the middle of things, an 18 year-old world record sprinter from the University of Syracuse sailing from his native New York into the teeth of international controversies. Glickman takes us all over the lot in his unfolding of his life script--rather surprising for a sportscaster renowned for discipline and focus behind the mike--but in truth this is one of the book's charms, and at the end of the day we probably wouldn't want it any other way.

Glickman is candid that his treatment by many parties at the Munich Olympics left him angry and hurt. The story is complex, and while the figure of Hitler and his anti-Semitism looms large, there were other administrators who did not bring glory upon themselves, either. Olympics President Avery Brundage [no surprise there] and Lawson Robertson, US track coach who angled for his own USC runners, did not bring credit to themselves in this saga. Only the remarkable showing of Glickman's replacement, the classy Jesse Owens, saved the US from further embarrassment in the press.

Thus, one of the world's fastest sprinters watched his events in street clothes. But Glickman was a self-starter, not a brooder, and to his credit, after a brief stint in professional football, he crafted a colorful and creative career in sports broadcasting. In style he had something of Howard Cosell about him--a unique sort of Gotham regional delivery that made him revered in the tri-state metro market but a bit too brash for Omaha. In later years networks came to appreciate his mastery of the broadcast science, and he would tutor many of today's best known announcers, including the likes of Bob Costas and Marv Albert. One of his favorite and most memorable tutorials was preparing young Gayle Sierens--a woman reporter--to call a nationwide NFL game involving the New York Jets in 1988, the only time a woman has ever called a pro football game.

Glickman enjoyed his own share of national exposure, and even close to his death in 2001 he would still do an occasional New Year's Bowl Game. But his forte was the New York sports scene--he was one of the early announcer for [and cheerleaders of] the new post-war NBA. We forget what a rag-tag organization the NBA was in the 1940's and 1950's. Glickman traveled with the New York franchise to less than glorious destinations like Fort Wayne, Rochester and Syracuse. His recollections of players and locales of those early days are fascinating and a studied contrast to what the league has become today.

Glickman was remarkably versatile, even to the point of calling races at Yonkers Raceway. But he is most remembered as the radio voice of the New York sports scene. He enjoyed lengthy tenures with the New York Giants and later the Jets. He also called NY Ranger games. He takes pride in the fact that, to the best of his knowledge, he was the first jock to step behind a microphone, though to read him he identifies as more of an entertainer and communicator than football insider. He observes that in the 1930's an announcer like Harvard educated Ted Husing could be fired for sounding too "high brow,"

Glickman is not a gossip, and this is not a tell-all book. But he does have opinions and a library of working experience with the famous voices of his career. Graham McNamee, he observed, tended to go overboard on dramatizations, and Bill Stern sought to suppress his own Jewish heritage, suggesting to Glickman that he [Glickman] would improve his career chances as "Marty Manning." He devotes considerable space to critiquing current [1996] on-air performers, though in a way that is more professorial than put-down. He has high regard for his protégés Bob Costas and Marv Albert, and strong praise for Dick Enberg, Dan Dierdorf, Tim McCarver, Paul Maguire, Jim McKay, Al Michaels, and Hannah Storm, among others. John Madden puts him to sleep after one quarter. Dick Vitale, by contrast, is dismissed as a "pain in the ass." Howard Cosell is a special case altogether, and the author's commentary here is somewhat more personal and detailed. It is not positive.

I am fortunate enough to remember Glickman's work in his prime, when NY Giant football games were carried by radio into Buffalo, and I frequently opted for Giants' games over the weekly TV broadcast of the Cleveland Browns. But even a young reader will enjoy this collage of personal triumph, broadcast evolution, and sports anecdotes. It is an affable read from a generally affable fellow.

Into the lonely recesses of recorded time, our great voices are no longer heard. Marty Glickman was more than a broadcaster, a familiar friend who joined us for a family gathering. Yes, on Sundays, he was intertwined with our best memories. Marty brought the electricity because our family only came together to watch the games, to hear him speak. Yet, he was a humble man and we didn't know until the latter part of his life that he waqs also a symbol of a great wrong, an injustice, a victim of the Holocaust. When I first heard he was a former Olympian, I didn't believe it. Small of stature, I could not imagine him competing like that. When I heard the story of Glickman and Sam Stoller, the two American-Jewish Olympians not allowed to compete for the American team in Berlin, 1936, I found my life begin to change. For the next twenty-seven years, I became obsessed with those games and wondered would it have changed history and the fate of the Jews had Marty and Sam Stoller run?
I say that here not only because I have written a fictional biography about that but because the outrage against these men still stand. This novel, Marty's enduring voice, is superior biography. I can hear Marty's gravely ecstatic energy back in the air. His stories are beautiful; his perceptions gentle and timely. I love the man and this work does him justice. It keeps his voice alive for another generation.

Robert Rubenstein
Author, Ghost Runners,
ATTMP and on Amazon.com.