Health crisis for Mary Lou Retton

1984 was the last time I missed a scheduled day of work (broken ankle and clavicle on the tennis court).

 

It's all hindsight at this point -- either they did it or they didn't -- but one would certainly hope that back when Mary Lou was hot hot hot on Wheaties, McDonald's, etc etc, and given the very limited career lifespan of gymnasts at the top level then as now, they would have requested/demanded that part of that deal include a long term "consultant" gig extending for many years after her competitive prime (say, from ages 35-65) and including, yes, health care coverage. That was a major factor in 1984 as it is now.

But, it's 40 years too late to worry about that now.

 

Contrarian take: Eruzione should get 10 percent of everything Al Michaels makes, b/c without the Miracle On Ice, Al is probably doing Double-A baseball by '85.

 

I know this is snark but it is probably not true. Michaels had ben hired by ABC as the announcer for the back-up games on their Monday Night Baseball Series in 1976. By 1979 he was sharing the World Series PBP with Keith Jackson and was pushing Jackson out as the number one PBP guy, While Jackson was actually pretty good on baseball he was not as good as Michaels..

 

She was married to Shannon Kelley, who was a (mostly) backup quarterback at the University of Texas. He then got into coaching, most recently at Houston Christian (former Baptist) University. He's now an account manager at NETSYNC in Houston.

On a related note, one of their daughters was a student in my class several years back. She was a great kid.

 

Yes, but Al hasn't missed a scheduled day of work since 1984.

 

I am biased but the 84 Olympics was the best of them all.

 

Once you get past the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Montreal Alouettes level of competition.

 

They opted not to compete. They were not missed in Los Angeles. And contrary to what we are told by pumpkinhead, they are not our friends.

 

Which is why the narrative fostered over the years that the Miracle On Ice "created" Al Michaels is a load of bullshit.

Al Michaels did his first NFL games in 1971 for NBC. He was low on the totem pole back in '71, mind you, but he was well-established by 1980.

 

Michaels was also doing Reds radio starting in the early 70, then switched to the Giants in 1974-76 (the last year teaming with Lon Simmons in a combo that was much better than the team they broadcast) before joining ABC full time.

 

Agreed, though I think that moment may have vaulted him from "guy who you remember from some stuff in the 80s" like Don Criqui or Charlie Jones to the World Series and the Monday Night Football gig (which is where I first remember him). The properties ABC had in the 1980s helped a lot too.