RIP Don Carter

[Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.]

Perhaps this could cross over to the trivia board thread: First athlete to sign a $1M endorsement contract (Ebonite International in 1964).

MIAMI (AP) — Bowling great Don Carter has died at 85.
The Professional Bowlers Association said Friday that Carter died at his home in Miami on Thursday night. He recently was hospitalized with pneumonia complicated by emphysema.

Edit to include this great Miller Lite commercial:

 

[Second Thoughts]

My Dad was a big bowler. We knew all of them. Carter and **** Weber were our tops. Sad to hear.

 

[Gutter]

Had a better average than Bob Uecker.

 

[MTM]

I don't think sports fans younger than 40 or maybe 50 realize how big bowling was on TV.

I remember spending Saturday afternoons with my mother watching Chris Schenkel and Bo Burton announce bowling on ABC.

 

[txsportsscribe]

thought this was the mavs' original owner when i saw thread title. glad it wasn't but still rip.

 

[BrianGriffin]

The big bowling alley (yes, bowling people it's an ALLEY) in my town is Don Carter's All-Star Lanes.

Never knew he was a "star" bowler. Until now.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

I don't think sports fans younger than 40 or maybe 50 realize how big bowling was on TV.

I remember spending Saturday afternoons with my mother watching Chris Schenkel and Bo Burton announce bowling on ABC.

If memory serves correct, you had ABC Wide World of Sports covering one season of bowling (fall maybe) and NBC Sportsworld covering the spring season. And yes, bowling was very big on Saturday afternoons back in the day, especially in the northeast in winter before college basketball got as big as it is.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Don Carter was one hell of a bowler. Still remember watching him on those decadent-looking Saturday afternoon telecasts. Don Carter ... Carmen Salvino ... Billy Welu ... all creating their own strikes rather than letting the polyurethane carry the ball into the pocket.

Want a piece of the past? Here.

 

[SixToe]

I always enjoyed watching Schenkel and the PBA, and it was huge back then.

Tastes great! Less filling! (Great ads.)

 

[HanSenSE]

God must have really needed someone to pick up a 7-10 split. RIP.

EDIT: In the 70s, ABC's Saturday afternoon PBA broadcast in the winter was huge. 3:30 p.m., followed by Wide World of Sports at 5. My mom worked for a few years at one of the alleys that was a stop on the tour and it was always fun watching the pros bowl on the same lanes we used in our junior leagues. College basketball was strictly a regional thing then and didn't take over Saturdays until the 80s.

 

[dooley_womack1]

My most exciting TV sports moment remains seeing Jim Stefanich roll a 300 game then collapse behind the line during a stepladder finals in 1974. Stefanich ended up losing the event, I believe.

 

[MileHigh]

The PBA on ABC with the late Chris Schenkel and Bo Burton was must-watch Saturday television.

Don Carter was big. And I didn't realize until I lived/worked in South Florida what a big deal he really was.

RIP.

 

[Football_Bat]

NBC was the Saturday college basketball channel in the late 70s/early 80s. I still remember the regional SWC game of the week with Frank Fallon (RIP) and Rudy Davalos on the call. Usually it was Arkansas, Houston, Texas or Baylor in various permutations.

 

[BrianGriffin]

NBC was the Saturday college basketball channel in the late 70s/early 80s. I still remember the regional SWC game of the week with Frank Fallon (RIP) and Rudy Davalos on the call. Usually it was Arkansas, Houston, Texas or Baylor in various permutations.

NBC was a place to go watch Ray Meyer get older. It seemed DePaul was on every Saturday. They were almost the Notre Dame of basketball.

It seems the opposite of now, almost a time when you had to be a sort of odd school to get on TV. I remember seeing my fair share of DePaul, Memphis State (remember Keith Lee?), Louisville, Houston ... man, those were the days.

 

[Versatile]

Marv Thronebury, Wilt Chamberlain, Rodney Dangerfield, Bubba Smith, Joe Frazier and Don Carter all endorsed Miller Lite in the late 1970s.

 

[HanSenSE]

NBC was the Saturday college basketball channel in the late 70s/early 80s. I still remember the regional SWC game of the week with Frank Fallon (RIP) and Rudy Davalos on the call. Usually it was Arkansas, Houston, Texas or Baylor in various permutations.

NBC was a place to go watch Ray Meyer get older. It seemed DePaul was on every Saturday. They were almost the DePaul of basketball.

It seems the opposite of now, almost a time when you had to be a sort of odd school to get on TV. I remember seeing my fair share of DePaul, Memphis State (remember Keith Lee?), Louisville, Houston ... man, those were the days.

IIRC, the NBC deal was the first national TV deal for colleges outside the NCAAs or NIT (yes, the NIT was still significant then). A lot of conferences had deals with regional syndicators (like TVS or Hughes Sports Network) or local stations. In the SF Bay area, KTVU would show a USF, Santa Clara or St. Mary's game around noonish, followed by a Pac-8 (and, by golly, it was always UCLA) at 2:30 on Saturdays. That's why there were lots of indie schools like DePaul and Notre Dame (with Orlando Wooooooooolllllridge).

 

[BrianGriffin]

NBC was the Saturday college basketball channel in the late 70s/early 80s. I still remember the regional SWC game of the week with Frank Fallon (RIP) and Rudy Davalos on the call. Usually it was Arkansas, Houston, Texas or Baylor in various permutations.

NBC was a place to go watch Ray Meyer get older. It seemed DePaul was on every Saturday. They were almost the DePaul of basketball.

It seems the opposite of now, almost a time when you had to be a sort of odd school to get on TV. I remember seeing my fair share of DePaul, Memphis State (remember Keith Lee?), Louisville, Houston ... man, those were the days.

IIRC, the NBC deal was the first national TV deal for colleges outside the NCAAs or NIT (yes, the NIT was still significant then). A lot of conferences had deals with regional syndicators (like TVS or Hughes Sports Network) or local stations. In the SF Bay area, KTVU would show a USF, Santa Clara or St. Mary's game around noonish, followed by a Pac-8 (and, by golly, it was always UCLA) at 2:30 on Saturdays. That's why there were lots of indie schools like DePaul and Notre Dame (with Orlando Wooooooooolllllridge).

Then you'd switch to CBS and watch an NBA doubleheader. One game involved the Celtics, the next involved the Lakers. A couple times a year, there would be one game, Lakers-Celtics.

 

[maumann]

Mark Roth vs. Marshall Holman was bowling's equivalent of Connors vs. McEnroe. And Earl Anthony was perhaps a square, West Coast version of Bjorn Borg.

I wanted to crank it like Roth but looked like Holman and threw like a right-handed Anthony.

 

[jr/shotglass]

At the time Roth was cranking it, I had no idea that you could really turn the ball over like that. Throughout youth bowling, it was drilled into me that you don't yank the ball sideways.

But oh, once I discovered lift ...

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Mark Roth vs. Marshall Holman was bowling's equivalent of Connors vs. McEnroe. And Earl Anthony was perhaps a square, West Coast version of Bjorn Borg.

I wanted to crank it like Roth but looked like Holman and threw like a right-handed Anthony.

This is the kind of stuff that should be on ESPN Classic. Not a ****ing SportsCentury on Peyton Manning. I used to hate Holman because he was so over-the-top with his intensity. I read somewhere the Roth suffered a stroke a couple of years back.