Terry O`Neil has a problem.
The onetime wunderkind of CBS Sports, credited with such innovations as the ”CBS Chalkboard” and the teaming of John Madden with Pat Summerall on National Football League games, was named executive producer of NBC Sports a month ago. Coincidentally, Harper & Row had just published a kiss-and-tell O`Neil autobiography about his five years at CBS, full of heroes and villains. Would he, insiders wonder, eventually do the same thing with NBC?
O`Neil, 39, is now spending a lot of time backpedaling on some of the book`s more telling revelations while trying to patch up some hurt feelings at NBC caused by the firing of his predecessor, Michael Weisman.
Even for a Notre Dame grad, it`s a tall order.
”My conscience is clear,” says O`Neil. ”I wrote the book well before Dick (Ebersol, the new NBC Sports president) called me. And I certainly wrote it without any intention of angling for a network job. You only have to read it to know that I had no ulterior motive.
”The only thing I made a clear decision about was that there be nothing personal in the book. I drew a line between personal and professional and I said that`s a different book; somebody could do it if they wanted to. I`m just writing about the business and not the personal lives of the people involved.”
But if you`re former CBS analyst Tom Brookshier, what O`Neil wrote in
”The Game Behind the Game” was personal. O`Neil wrote that Brookshier and Summerall ”regularly drank their way through the 4 p.m. football telecasts.” Brookshier, now a Philadelphia radio broadcaster, calls the charge ”an absolute lie.”
O`Neil says he understands Brookshier`s complaint. ”I still count him as a great guy,” O`Neil says. ”We don`t have occasion to see each other anymore. I like him quite a lot. And I took some pain in the book to say he really is a good guy.”
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Such smoothing of ruffled feathers has preoccupied O`Neil in his first few weeks on the job. He and Ebersol had a meeting May 15 with most of the NBC Sports staff to clear the air.
”There was a little trepidation on everyone`s part going into it,”
O`Neil says. ”My approach was to go straight at the issues that I figured were on their minds.
”I started off talking about Mike Weisman. I said, `Hey, here`s a guy who`s won more Emmys in one night than I`ve ever won in my whole career. He`s beloved here.`
”When these kinds of things happen-I`ve seen these changings of the guard over the years-a lot of them are treated like when Stalin came to power in the `30s in Russia. He had the names of his predecessors purged from buildings and books and you couldn`t speak the name of Lenin.
”I said, `Hey, you can invoke Mike`s name all you want.` There`s a natural shorthand in the business where you say, `Well, Mike used to say` or
`Mike did it this way or that.` I said, `Hey, I`m plenty secure enough to have you say all of that that you want.
” `But on the other side, when Dick and I come to the point where we want to make some changes, you have to see that not as a personal attack on Mike in any way. It`s just the natural order of things that when new guys come in, there`ll be some changes.`
”They couldn`t have been more receptive.”
How receptive is open to question. Participating in the meeting was NBC`s top football analyst, Merlin Olsen, who is criticized in O`Neil`s tome, especially for his work during Super Bowl XX.
”NBC had added Bob Griese in the commentary booth to cover for Merlin Olsen`s deficiencies,” O`Neil wrote. ”But, together, they fired a double-barreled blank in explaining the Bears` dominance.”
So, Terry, how did Merlin feel about that?
”Where Merlin`s concerned, we had a great talk about how we can do football better in terms of supporting him and creating the environment that we did at CBS in `81,” O`Neil says. ”To give him access to players and coaches. Give him all the production support he needs to be as good as he can be.
”The situation`s not nearly (as) bad at NBC (as it was at CBS in the pre-O`Neil days). Their product is really pretty good. We just have to put a new system to it a little bit and maybe a little tougher work ethic.”
That new system may include a lot of secrets kept from the boss because of his new book. It`s one thing to call Brent Musburger ”marginally abrasive” and an ”anchor monster.” But how do you get your NBC stars such as Dick Enberg and Bob Costas to level with you?
Terry O`Neil has his hands full.
– This is getting serious. WLS-TV (Channel 7) preempts ”Wheel of Fortune” for a special edition of ”Bulls on the Move” at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Jim Rose hosts and coach Doug Collins guests. ”It`ll be kind of a pep rally before their game Friday night,” said a station official. . . . WBBM-TV
(Channel 2) will extend its postgame ”The 10 O`Clock News” to an hour for expanded coverage of Friday night`s Bulls contest at the Stadium.
– Needless to say, the Bulls` games on Channel 2 walloped all competition last weekend. Saturday`s game against the Detroit Pistons had a 15.7 local overnight Nielsen rating and a 48 share, while Monday`s contest had a 23.4/54. A local Nielsen rating point represents 31,000 TV households; shares are a percentage of sets in use. By contrast, the Cubs-Reds game Saturday had a 5.3/ 16 on WMAQ-TV (Channel 5).