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player ready...It was a question that begged to be asked of Nancy Stern, 26, producer of ABC and ESPN`s coverage of the Tour de France (which ends Sunday):
What`s a nice girl like you doing in a place like that?
”I fell in love with the sport,” Stern said earlier this week. ”The past two years, I covered it as the associate producer. Once you get hooked into this, you pretty much become a groupie. There are so many different characters in the sport and so many different tactics. Every day, I`m learning something new.”
Which shouldn`t be difficult for someone with Stern`s brief resume. Besides winning All-America lacrosse honors while at Tufts, Stern had production internships at the PBS affiliate in New York and at a couple of Boston TV stations before landing at ABC News as a desk assistant.
But her relatively young age hasn`t worked against Stern. ”With this group, age doesn`t come into it. We`re all doing the job we should be doing.” Stern was ”happily surprised” when then-ABC Executive Producer Geoff Mason named her to head the network`s Tour coverage. ”I felt I was ready to do something like this,” she said. ”I was honored and excited because it was the Tour and an event I really loved. It would be a really big challenge.”
A challenge made even more difficult when ABC decided to cut back nearly in half the support staff-partly because of the network`s commitment to the upcoming Pan American Games-usually sent to Europe.
”We have four production people working on the race in London and three in France,” she said. ”But I feel we`ve been able to do just as good a job. We`ve shown more actual racing than we have in the past. (Yet) the stories haven`t passed us by. We`ve covered (Greg) LeMond, (Miguel) Indurain and all the contenders as well as we have in the past.
”And we have a good relationship with all the other broadcasters at the Tour, so by sharing facilities, we`ve been able to bring a lot more racing to our telecasts.”
Stern will travel almost straight from Paris to Havana, where her unit will be responsible for any breaking news stories during the Pan American Games.
”It`ll be a breather, but I wish I didn`t have to leave right away,”
she said. ”I`m excited about going to Cuba. It`ll be another challenge.”
– The official NBA championship videotape, ”Learning to Fly: The World Champion Chicago Bulls` Rise to Glory,” is now available from CBS/Fox Video and NBA Entertainment at $19.95. A fast-paced look at the past season, the video is dedicated to the memory of Barry Winik, the NBA Entertainment`s longtime director of photography who died last spring.
In a way, it`s also dedicated to former Bulls broadcaster Jim Durham, whose play-by-play calls are liberally sprinkled throught the 53-minute video with those of Marv Albert, Joe McConnell and others. ”It`s hard not to use
(Durham),” said Larry Weitzman, who scripted the highlight tape. ”No one came to us and told us not to use him.”
Weitzman, however, used Jeff Kaye, the voice of NFL Films, to narrate the the video because ”we felt there was a lot of drama to their season. (And)
his voice cuts through the music.” The title theme is the new hit single by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
– NBC taped Thursday night`s ”Comic Relief Salute to Michael Jordan” at the Chicago Theatre for a one-hour comedy and music special to air sometime in September. ”You don`t have to know sports to admire Michael Jordan,” said NBC executive Rick Ludwin. ”He is one of those rare individuals who is, in every sense of the phrase, larger than life.” . . . Also at NBC, Bob Costas and Marv Albert will co-host a live one-hour special at 4 p.m. Sept. 21 at which time members of the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team (most likely featuring mostly NBA stars) will be selected, marking the first time Olympic team members will be named by a committee rather than as a result of a tryout camp.
– The Cubs haven`t been the success on the field this year, but their telecasts still are ratings winners for WGN-Ch. 9. During this July sweeps period, nine Cubs games averaged a 9.9 Nielsen and a 9.6 Arbitron rating. Three of the prime-time games helped Channel 9 win the night locally. Three White Sox games, all against the Brewers, averaged a 7.2 Nielsen and 6.7 Arbitron rating.
– Dave Eanet and Brian Davis take turns hosting WBBM Radio`s ”Sportsline”
live from the Oak Street Beach Saturday and Sunday as part of the station`s Air and Water Show promotion.
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– Racism in baseball-on the heels of a scathing report by the Center of Sport in Society-and other topics (such as mandatory drug testing and player salary caps) are broached by host John McLaughlin in an hour interview with commissioner Fay Vincent and his NBA counterpart, David Stern, on CNBC at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Friday.
– Charlie Jones and Paul Maguire describe the NFL Fastest Man contest on NBC`s ”SportsWorld” following the Bills-Eagles exhibition game Sunday. ”The competition was so fierce the photo timer was needed to determine several races, including the final,” said Jones of the competition held June 15 in Palm Desert, Calif.