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May 16, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:26
May 16, 2008, Friday, Hour #2
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Greetings to you.
Music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists.
All across the fruit and plain, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
And when we get back to the phones, remember on Friday, the program is yours.
Whatever you want to talk about for the most part is permissible.
I, as a benevolent dictator, will allow you even to discuss things on Friday that I don't care about.
That's not the rule Monday through Thursday, but I will fake it on Friday.
Telephone numbers 800 28282.
The email address is L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
I am holding in my hand and my formerly nicotine stained fingers a copy of Jim Nance's Always by My Side, a Father's Grace and a Sports Journey unlike any other.
I learned of this book back in January, February, actually out at Pebble Beach.
Jim's with us now.
Jim, welcome to the EIB network for the first time.
It's really great to have you here.
Well, Rush, it's the first time I've talked to you on the air.
Of course, we've spoken and emailed for a long time for years and off the air visit.
And this is a thrill to be on the EIB Radio Network.
Well, it's uh it's it's likewise a thrill to have you here.
So many great things in this book, uh, Jim, and it's so timely given the uh the royaled circumstances in our culture, your book and your life, uh the relationship with your family, the way you've lived, uh provide uh an example to anybody that that's virtuous uh and still happens in this country and that it's rewarded.
Jim Nance, ladies and gentlemen, dreamed when he was a young boy, like all of us did, of being sports casters someday.
My idol growing up was Harry Carey and Jack Buck.
Uh wanted to be a sportscaster, never did it.
Jim Nance dreamed of being at CBS when he was a young boy, and now here he is for how many years now at CBS?
Twenty-three, almost half my lifetime.
I it was more than a dream, it was almost bordering on an obsession.
I know that's a little bit of a strong word, but I had this crazy little idea at the age of eleven.
I turned to my father watching the masters tournament.
I declared it right there on the spot.
One day I want to be one of those voices.
I want to be there telling the story of that great tournament and all these championships and sporting events around the world.
That's what I wanted to do.
And you've done it.
Well, you've done not and you've not just done it.
Sixty-three day stretch in two thousand seven from February through April.
You became the first broadcaster ever to call the Super Bowl the Final Four and the Masters.
Well, you know, that was something that no one had ever had the great fortune of being able to declare during the course of a career.
And I got to do all those events in two months.
I I it's a statement really about CBS having the stars align more than it has anything to do with any ability or talent on my part.
They just all ended up at my network, and I had a chance to make those uh championship uh journeys back to back to back.
It was um it was very special.
You still did it, and that's what and you're very you you've maintained your humility throughout all of this, which is um unique.
Now, did I you you it was it CBS because CBS had the masters, was it the masters that you wanted to do, or was a combination of the two.
I think it was really the fact that CBS had the masters, and even back then they were, you know, in this long stretch, this wonderful relationship that is very old fashioned, and just the the way that it's set up, it's always a one-year agreement, and we're now, let's see, fifty-three years in a row of uh broadcasting the that tournament on one year agreements.
And so I'm a young man, and I I do hear these uh the stories that uh with the by these gentlemen like Pat Summerall and Jack Whittaker, who were working the broadcast back in those days for CBS, and they were just waxing poetic, and I love their erudition about everything.
Beyond just the the golf tournament itself, they're all their knowledge uh really struck me, and I I wanted to be one of those men, one of those voices that had this uh worldliness, if you will, and awareness and appreciation for all things, all cultures, all places, and people.
One of the things I want to convey to the audience, Jim, is uh you know, and I'm I mentioned this in an in an email to you about what we would do here today.
Um this this book is a is a fantastic thing because you all have watched Jim Nance and you've heard Jim Nance for Twenty three years in some cases.
But you don't know Jim Nance because Jim Nance is the best at what he does.
He never makes whatever event he's at about him.
He always makes sure that uh that the he brings the event to you.
And this book is an opportunity for people to get to know you, Jim, in a in a in a personal way.
Uh and I want to tell people if they ever get a chance to meet you, you are going to be exactly what they hope you would be from having known you on television all of these years.
And it's you know, a lot of people meet uh pi people in prominent positions primarily in media, and they want them to be what they uh see on TV, here on radio, and oftentimes they're not, but you are.
You're you're just as genuine and uh uh and humble uh in person as you are on the air.
Let's let's start here at the beginning of your book because you're in Fort Worth and you're doing a golf tournament.
You're doing a colonial down, and your dad is with you, and uh I'm jump starting a little bit here.
Uh uh but this is I think the first time your dad is gonna he not the first time, but uh he he that's the beginning of his illness uh uh that that happened there, and it was it was uh very tragic thing, and they didn't tell you about uh what actually happened to him till after the tournament, correct?
That's correct.
My father was sixty-six at the time, healthy, strapping, smart, self-made man who came out of a little town in North Carolina, a real entrepreneurial spirit about everything in his life, always wanted the better himself, always wanted to learn, live like like uh life like you do, Rush, with uh zest to the fullest, wanted to take it all in.
So he would often go out with me on the road to various sporting events, Final Fours, Masters, in this case it was the colonial tournament.
I thought he was overheated when he came to the tower as we're about to go on the air.
Ken Venturi is sitting by my side, and uh something I could tell right away was was terribly wrong.
What it was was he's actually uh suffering a stroke right before my very eyes.
Now we're going on the air, and he's trying to make his way back to the clubhouse.
I didn't realize it was that desperate, but he collapsed at the base of my tower, and what it really was, it was triggering the onset of Alzheimer's.
His life was never the same.
Now I had been at the network ten years.
Not only did I have this dream, and some may have called it far fetched when I was a young boy to work for CBS one day, but now it's happened, and I have now dream part two, and that is the one day I want my father to be with me every step of the way, traveling with me from uh sport to sport, seeing all the great championships uh that we have your country.
You wanted to do this as a team and then and he didn't want to he didn't want any part of that.
Well, you know what, he was starting to kind of cede to it.
He initially was just kind of pass it off and say, we'll see son.
You know, he maintained his independence.
But uh I I really thought that we were moving within a couple of years of that becoming a reality where I really could find purpose for him being on the road.
It's a busy life that's always in a different city every week, and correspondence and otherwise it's difficult to stay on top and manage things.
And I just could see as uh as the only son, I could see that father and b uh son Bond now transitioning to the point where even to this day he would have been seventy-nine years old.
And there I go again.
I'm talking about him in the past tense, as he's now thirteen years uh deep in the you know darkened stage of uh Alzheimer's, and he's still alive, and I catch myself talking about him in the past tense and it crushes me.
But uh I could still see him out there today with me, and that's why I I took that backdrop last year, those three events, Super Bowl Final Four and Masters, and used that as the backdrop, as the you know as the place to kind of write about how this would have been the ultimate father-son sports road trip.
But I'm on it wanted to make this something like what you do, Rush.
You inspire people and you make things you know uh uh everything you have is a message.
And uh, you know, I I wanted to really strike universal themes faith, loyalty, love, family, relationships, optimism, courage, and grace.
And that's what the book really is.
It transcends sports it's not a sports book, it's a book about love and relationships.
It is indeed.
Um, we've we've met your father here in this interview in his sixties.
Uh did he encourage you when uh you told him way back when you were a teenager that you wanted to work at CBS.
Rush, he made me believe anything I ever wanted to achieve in my life was attainable.
He made me believe I could do it.
He lifted me on his shoulders.
And actually, like uh people do with uh you know different things in life, whether they're playing golf or shooting a free throw or about to go in and make a speech, they visualize.
My father taught me the power of visualization, and I I all through my teens, uh you know, I envisioned this life.
I saw it.
I mean, I I th there's no sense of entitlement at all.
But I believe that one day it was gonna happen.
So when I got the chance to audition for CBS years later, at the age of twenty-six, it was almost like I was just waiting for the script that I'd already written for life to kind of evolve and catch up with my script.
I felt totally comfortable and prepared and ready for that situation because in my mind I'd played it out.
I knew one day it was going to arrive.
Your mom and dad make you feel special.
Oh, of course.
I mean, I was raised in just uh, you know, about as perfect of uh a home environment as you could uh ever imagine.
You know, my my parents are very humble people.
My mom is still she talk about a hero, going strong and fit and active and smart and uh you know uh concerned with all things in the world, and my father was always one with a curious mind and wanted me to get broader and wider than just worrying about who was winning a game.
He looked at the world of sports with a romance in his eyes.
He he he he liked to learn about people who overcame things.
He wanted to watch sports to be taken to places and learn about cultures.
You know, the back in the wide world of sports days when Jim McKay was taking us to you know the behind the iron curtain or to the Great Wall of China, he loved that.
And that's the way, alas I look at the world of sports.
Um I'm not an agate type ESPN sports center highlight, in your face kind of a sports fan.
You know, I'm looking for something with a little more thought.
The life lessons.
Absolutely.
And that's the reason that people had said, Man, you've got so many interesting people you've met in your life.
You know, you ought to write a book about some of these events you do.
But to me, that's a trip that's an ego trip.
I wanted to I wanted to if I was gonna write something, there had to be some important messages that would inspire all people.
Well, well, talk about some of these people that you've met because you've met everybody uh in many realms, and they're all your friends.
Man's got more friends than anybody I know.
Jim Nance, always by my side, will continue after this.
And we're back, Rush Limbaugh, the excellence in broadcasting network, and we resume our conversation with Jim Nance of CBS Sports, his terrific new book, Always by My Side, a Father's Grace and a Sports Journey unlike any other.
There are a lot of names in this book.
He's met a lot of people.
Uh President Bush 41 wrote the forward.
Yes, he did.
I didn't mean to come off like a name dropper there, Rush, but No, no, I'll take care of that.
I can do that.
And you say I have a lot of friends.
I am blessed, and uh, I count you as a very dear friend, and I I treasure all my friendships.
My father was like that.
I opened my shows by saying hello, friends, and it's really it's a testament, it's a tribute to my father because all he had in his life were friends.
And you know, he treated everyone with such dignity and respect from all stations in life.
And when I went on that three championship journey last year, you know, I had the intention, since my father couldn't be figuratively by my side.
Uh, you know, I realized at that very point, he would always be my by my side.
I'd carry his spirit.
I'd find surrogates who could continue to inspire and guide me and promote the positives that dad stood for, and no one more so than former President Bush.
He uh, you know, to write the forward to this uh book meant a great deal to me, obviously, but his friendship and his guidance for the last fifteen years, he really it's just not some peripheral, you know, I know him a little bit on the side, met him in a few events.
I mean, uh, he's very much part of my life.
I saw him just a couple of days ago.
I suspect he's probably listening right now because he knows I was gonna be on your show, and I hope he's feeling a little bit better because he's been he's been a little under the weather here in recent days, and um he you know, he he wrote some things uh uh you know I was trying to get across in in the book about father figures and and people who overcome adversity that uh you know that really really hit home.
He uh he he wrote in the forward few of us will walk this earth and be untouched by tragedy.
And as the old saying goes, adversity has a way of introducing you to yourself.
How'd you meet him?
I met him just after he left office, the great city of Houston, and I heard you talking in the first hour about this ant inf infection uh infestation down in Houston and uh got my attention.
But um the great city of Houston has lifted me on uh its shoulders and claimed me as their own.
I went to college down there.
Again, my parents live in Houston.
They've taken great pride in my career that not only did they uh you know give me a chance, at the age of twenty, I was anchoring on the CBS affiliate there in Houston on weekend at the sports, while still Living in the dorm over on the University of Houston campus.
With who?
Who were your roommates?
Uh with Fred Couples, Blaine McAllister, both of whom have had big uh tour careers, and John Horn, who was on the tour for one year back in the late eighties.
But Houston became the launching point.
They claim me, they're proud of me.
And President Bush, of course, has Houston as a home, and he was well aware that there was this kid who had made it to the to the network.
You know, uh his family had a little history there with CBS.
His father actually served on on William Paley's first board at CBS.
So anyway, unrelated to that, the president, you know, put out enough feelers and w uh uh and vibes that he wanted to have a chance to meet, and we did just after January 93 when he left office.
We met, we played golf, and this incredible friendship uh was spawned.
Frank Trikenigan.
Frank Trickinian wants to know why you canceled your golf lesson from a couple of days ago out of the Great Emerald Dunes.
Because I'm working.
Okay.
Now he said you desperately are in need of a lesson.
I know you're going out to the National Boys and Girls Club function next next week, which is a great charity event.
But uh uh Mr. Trikenny, and for those who don't know, is uh father of golf television, absolute legend in sports television, just back out the lifetime uh sports emmy a few weeks ago in New York, and uh he was a father figure to me, and he gave me that tough love uh approach, you know.
When I first started, I was working with the likes of Summerall and Venturi and you know, some some some gentlemen I had been listening to and watching my whole life.
I couldn't believe now I was their colleague, and I was throwing it from hole to hole by let's go back to Pat and let's go back to Mr. Summerall.
Mr. Venturi, let me ask you this.
And finally, Frank, after a few few shows, brought me into the office and just scolded me for you know, you don't call these guys Mr. This or that.
You know, I had a lot of that tough love, but it uh you know, at first I wasn't seeing the uh a lot of the uh love part of the deal.
He he you tell a funny story.
I guess your your your first tower assignment was at the 16th hole.
And my first master, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's very close to the green, and you ask Frank, what do I say if somebody hits all of one here?
Yeah, I'm bound to head out for the final round, what would turn out to be maybe the greatest day in the history of the game because Jack Nicholas would that day win his sixth green jacket.
So I you know, I was aware I'd watched the tournament forever, and I knew that back left hole location was vulnerable to a hole in one.
What should I say, uh, Mr. Trikenney if someone makes a hole in one?
He said, Son, this is a visual medium.
You say nothing.
Now get out of my office and don't ever come in here and ask me a stupid question like that.
So I ran out to 16, and Jack almost knocked it in, you know, for from the T. The ball I took a peek at the hole.
I couldn't get the words out, Rush.
I was so overwhelmed and overmatched and 26, not believing the network entrusted this weighty assignment with me, and I said nothing after he hit the ball until about five minutes later when he knocked the putt in.
Now, Frank never cut away off off the scene of Jack walking around the pond up to the green, standing around lining up his putt.
I couldn't talk.
My teeth were chattering.
I had chill bumps up and down my arms, and and thankfully I wasn't on camera to paint this picture because it would have been an ugly sight.
In fact, I was concerned that the mic might be picking up my clicking molars as my teeth were chattering.
Finally, Jack makes the putt to tie the lead, and I somehow mustered up enough courage to say the bear has come out of hibernation.
Sounding, of course, much more mature than my twenty-six young years, and I was just trying to find a way, Rush, to get back, invited back to next year.
I didn't want to be one and done and blow it right there.
Uh well, it turned out you had nothing to worry about.
Well, I didn't know it at the time.
I was consumed with self-doubt, believe me.
All right.
Now you're you so you're a kid growing up and you're watching CBS.
You've got I mean, you you you have to have idols, you have to have people that inspired you.
You've d and in spite of that, you have your own unique style, you're nobody else.
What about Ray Scott?
Love Ray Scott, and I heard you say Jack Buck and Harry Carey, two icons, but Ray Scott was like the father of the NFL on CBS, if you will, those old Green Bay Packer days, and the ultimate minimalist on the air, you know, star Dollar touchdown, Green Bay.
I got to meet Mr. Scott early in my career, and he he was so generous with his time.
He was retired living in Arizona.
But really, the race got Pat Summerall, Jim McKay, Jack Whitaker, Chris Shankle, Dick Emberg, Kurt Gowdy, did I say Shankle?
That whole group, uh that really represented the the you know the group that that really you know drove me to want to be in this business, the impetus to make this declaration, I want to work for CBS because they were they were always so smart, Ariadne about everything.
They didn't try to make the game about them.
They were there to tell the story.
It wasn't about the teller.
Do you know that you know I got hired again as back in the mid-80s, so uh you know all of them were alive at that time.
Now we've lost Mr. Gowdy and uh Mr. Schenkel, but they've all become a part of my life, and I want to be a composite of all of them.
I want them all to feel invested in my career.
And um for example, Chris Schenkel, you remember Cred.
Yes.
Chris Schenkel one one time called me up, and they all call me up, you know, from time to time after a show, and usually to say something like Mr. Whitaker called after the Masters this year and praised the opening to the master show as the best in the history of the tournament.
You know why they're doing that?
Because they know that you are preserving a tradition that is vanishing before their very eyes in terms of the way sports is brought into people's homes these days on television.
Do you have a couple more minutes?
I got a big thing.
I would love to, right.
We'll be back and continue with Jim Nance Always by my side is his brand new book.
We'll be back.
By the way, debuted on a New York Times list, by the way, already.
We are in the midst of having a great time with Jim Nance, CBS Sports.
His book Always by My Side has debuted already on the upcoming New York Times bestseller list, a father's grace and a sports journey unlike any other.
I'm really taken by what you said right before the break, and I had to cut you short.
But you talk about all these people have come before you, Jim, and that you want to be a composite of them.
You know what?
One of the things that that uh you know when we speak pol politically, you know, the the traditions, the institutions that have made this country great are worth preserving, and that's what you're doing in your field, and that's why that's why all these people have such reverence for you is because you revered what they did and the ground that they broke, and you're continuing that tradition against a whole lot of odds, you know, as the as the media markets expand and and and get filled with niche broadcasters, you still are defining the right way to do it, and that's why they're appreciative.
I think I'm lucky, Russian, that I got in just in time.
The industry definitely has changed, and everyone uh I'm talking young broadcasters come along today, they f really feel like they have to do something that's outlandish to make them stand out.
They have to say something provocative, and that maybe they don't even really truly believe in their heart, and you know, it's not really what their beliefs are, but they're going to sacrifice their beliefs for trying to do something to you know to to gain attention.
And I I've just never tried to be anything other than who I am.
And it's interesting that sometimes it gets you in a little bit of trouble, the old fashioned conservative approach to doing it.
But, you know, what kind of trouble?
What you know, you know, like you go do a let's just well since it recently happened.
Let's say you do the Masters Tournament, and you know, i i there are some columnists.
I'm not this is not a rant at all.
People are entitled to their opinion, but uh people sometimes don't get that sport.
They don't understand uh golf.
And and I in fact I find the mainstream media to be incredibly anti-everything golf.
It's the easiest sport in the world to attack and all those who are associated with it.
So it becomes a breeding ground for ridicule.
So you can come on the air and you can try to wax poetic and do something that's lyrical and write something that is written in uh television form.
It's maybe not grammatically spot on.
Uh believe me, I have no grammarian in the world who has any issue with anything I say, but you write something, and maybe it's it's got some drama to it.
And the person that's reading it or hearing it doesn't get it.
They don't understand the sport.
They don't understand what it's like to walk in you know onto the grounds of Augusta.
And for me, it's the childhood dream.
I have chill bumps even to this day when I show up there every year.
So I don't look at the world through a prism of sarcasm.
Anything I do, I take things face on.
I I that's just I tell you how I feel, and what you hear on the air is what I'm feeling.
I'm not gonna try to fake it, create synthetic drama.
I'm just gonna be myself.
They're just jealous, Jim.
I don't know about that.
Just jealous.
They wish they had what you had, including your talent.
You know, my father used to look at people and and he treated everyone with such respect.
And he always believed that he would rather trust you face on and be disappointed, perhaps down the road, be disappointed some of the time, rather than never to trust someone, never to believe in someone, and alas be disappointed all the time.
So there's a big difference there.
And you you try to replicate that philosophy to this day.
I do in everything that I do.
I mean, that's just the way I live my life.
I um I was raised that way.
I'm wired.
I can confirm this.
You won't remember this, uh, but this was a big deal to me.
It might have been my first or second ATT.
And it was Yeah, it was I was playing with Fuzzy Zeller, and it was Saturday morning before the uh uh Saturday round at Pebble, and we're on the uh uh putting green, and you and your crew are out there.
And I think this is actually I I might have seen you at a golf course in the way, but I think this is the first time we actually had a chance to talk, and right then and there.
You were you were taking people to an Italian restaurant somewhere outside of out of Pebble that night, and you invited me to go.
You didn't invite me, you told me I was going.
And I I had to fly back.
We weren't gonna make the cut, and I and I had to fly back.
But it was the next year that I was there, uh, you invited me.
But Jim, I mean, here's he had no idea who I was other than my reputation, and it didn't matter.
I was going to his dinner.
And so that just I think will confirm for people that you you see the best in everybody first and let them disappoint you.
One more sports casting question based on all of these guys uh that have come before you and did not insert themselves into the event.
There's one big name who did got away with it, Howard Cosell.
You know, in the last few months I've met Howard Cosell's grandsons.
They have actually live up my way here in Connecticut, and uh I have you know great admiration for them and for their grandfather, and I read all of uh the three books that Howard authored, and you know, I thought he had a brilliant mind.
And I met him on a couple of occasions when I was in school at Houston.
And uh, you know, the first time I walked up very timidly and and shook his hand and told him I wanted to be a broadcaster, and uh you know, I loved all things ABC sports back in that golden age of sports television.
His wife Emmy was always with him, and that uh that struck me, and that I just thought that that uh you know that meant a lot, and I I see that now as um you know I'm someone that's uh you know living this life of the road warrior.
But you know, just a few months later the Houston Astros were playing uh because I first met him at a football banquet, then I met him during the baseball playoffs.
He was doing some baseball work for ABC with Keith Jackson, and I and I met him in Philadelphia, and uh and I walked over and he says, You know, Emmy, and that was his wife, she's unfortunately gone as well.
He says, Emmy remembers you from down in Houston.
She's here.
Why don't you go over and say hello to her?
You made an impression on her, young man.
And I went over and I saw Emmy Cosell.
I walked over and introduced myself, said I met you in Houston.
I couldn't believe it.
I mean, it's months later, and you think of all the thousands of people that he must have met, and uh for for some reason they he had later shared that with his wife, and they had discussed it, and he knew that she would still remember me as well.
I'll never forget that.
You know, I don't want to intrude on your space here, but I have a similar story.
When I was in Pittsburgh working for an ABC owned and operated radio station, uh Cosell would come in when they had a Monday night game for the Steelers, and the next morning he would go into the radio station, which is KQV, and he would do his uh speaking of sports commentary.
And of course, we would all make sure we were there to meet him.
Now, this is 1972.
Uh about 1979, seven seventy nine or eighty, he came into ABC with ABC to Kansas City when I was working for the Royals uh to do uh a game, and I'm up in the press box where my assigned duties took place, and he's down in the first base before the gates are open, he's down in the first base dugout, the Royals dugout, and he's pre-taping an opening, rehearsing it.
So I said, I uh I'm I'm I got my courage up and went down there, and I I uh I told him I'd met him in uh in Pittsburgh to your great to see you.
And he just he was in his first reaction was Howard Cosell.
How dare you insult me, interrupt me when I'm in the middle of this preparation for this broadcast now.
You expect me to remember you from Pittsburgh.
And then he totally changed after I'm sitting there quaking in my boots.
Of course I remember.
How are you?
Nice to see you.
Oh, that's great.
You know, these these guys another name, two more names here.
Uh uh Don Oleyer, I didn't know that you knew Omiyer.
Oh I never oh I never associated Omeyer with CBS.
Well, Ollmeyer was the executive producer of NBC sports when I was a college sophomore, and along with my roommates, the ones we mentioned earlier, all professional golfers, uh you know, later to become, we marched out to the Houston Open uh uh on a school day, and uh there was the NBC compound, and they all said, Hey, you ought to go ask him for a job.
You know, they they knew of course I had this crazy dream that one day I was gonna work uh you know, golf television or work sports for CBS.
Uh I went over to Security Guard and asked for Don Oldmeyer to please come out.
I'd like to have a word with him.
And the guy says, May I ask him who wants to speak to us?
Yeah, tell him Jim Nance is here to see him.
About five minutes later, here comes Don Ollmeyer with the security guard.
He says, I'm sorry, I'm looking for Jim Nance.
Uh uh, you know, now suddenly I realized I'm kind of in the middle of a bad college prank, but I introduced him to my my my roommates, and uh he said, How can I help you?
And I explained I was on the golf team and I wanted to one day carve out a career in his field and could uh is there any employment available this weekend?
What do you have in mind?
And one of the guys blurted out, he wants to be an announcer.
He said, Well, he chuckled.
We have all the announcers we need this weekend.
But I'll tell you what, the compounds out here at 17.
The announcers have to park up by the clubhouse.
I could get you a job if you would volunteer.
It can't pay anything.
You could drive the announcers, shuttle them from the parking lot to the compound and to their towers for the broadcast.
Would you be interested in doing that?
Would I be interested in doing that?
I figured if I couldn't be on the air, you know, hanging out with the announcers had to be the second biggest job.
So that got me really my my end, to be honest.
I the next week I did go work for him again up at the Byron Nelson tournament, and um that was my start.
I started calling radio stations and got work off of that.
Now you'll see.
Now here's another life lesson, which is what you said sports is uh has taught you and what it really still holds your interest today.
Uh you've mentioned luck a number of times today in discussing your career, but luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
And whether it was a prank or not, you went up and asked for it.
Yes, absolutely right.
It's you know, there is some something about persistence or perseverance or just thinking out of the box a little bit.
And you're right.
Luck often is the wrong word.
Good fortune, maybe is a better description.
I have a friend that plays with you out at the ATT, Don Lucas, and he one time told me that I need to drop the luck thing a little bit and talk more about fortune because you know, you do get these moments of fate, and then what are you going to do with them?
You know, it's like Rush, I know you've talked about this many times, but take 41 for example.
41 has this friendship that develops with President Clinton through all their efforts for tsunami relief over in Southeast Asia and later Katrina relief.
Well, he calls me up one year at the uh Final Four in um St. Louis and says, Hey, I Jimmy, I have a favor I need to ask.
Now, I know through experience that when President Bush Sr. says he's got a favor to ask, that means he's about to lay the biggest favor in the world on you.
So, sure, sir, how can I help you?
He said, Well, you know, I've been traveling around the world here with President Clinton, and we've decided we want to do something that's never been done before.
We want to have like a like a like just a social get together.
And we don't want the media to know about it.
And I just want to make sure the President Clinton has a good time.
I don't want this thing to be political.
I don't want to talk about world issues.
My favor I'm asking, would you consider being our intermediary?
Well, you know, you can assign me to go call a Super Bowl or host the Olympics or the Masters, what have you.
But to think that the first time they had this social setting for two days, which was repeated the next year.
At Walker's Point, to think that my father would have been aware of this.
This would have been something that he would have been the most proud of.
The fact that if this was history, in fact, that these two would get together for a quasi-vacation, that his son was the hand chosen intermediary between two presidents and got invited back again the next year and the year after that.
Well, my goodness, in his eyes, that would have been his son's greatest accomplishment.
And you know, in addition to all this, you're really a great friend because you permitted yourself to be in the photo with you let them put you in the picture of this.
You got it in your book.
I think you're out on the president's boat.
Well, you know, uh the the next the second year, President Bush called back for another favor and said, You know, we need a fourth this year to play golf.
I want it to be really fun for President Clinton.
Do you have any ideas?
I don't want anybody to travel too far to come here.
Uh yeah, listen, you got a lot of friends.
Anyone close by?
And I said, Well, how about um how about Tom Brady?
He said, You you mean you you mean the New England Patriots quarterback?
I said, Well, yes, sir, he's just ninety miles down the road, and Foxborough, he's a good golfer.
I've got his number and you know, a good friend.
I think he'd come up.
You do you really think Tom Brady could come up here and play golf with us?
I said, uh, I don't know, sir.
I'll see President Bush, President Clinton.
I kind of like our chances.
He said, Well, then Jimmy, by all means invite him.
So we got Tom Brady to come up the next year.
We had a glorious day of golf.
We played sixes where everybody got to play, you know, with one another and switched the bags around so you rode for six holes.
And I'm here to report to you the results.
Okay?
Yeah.
Bush Brady defeated Nance Clinton one up.
Bush Nance played Clinton Brady to a draw.
Brady's a scratch.
He is.
He shot seventy-three on the day.
Now the last six holes is Brady puts his bag on the cart to ride with me the final six holes.
I turned to him and say, now look, Tom, you've won three Super Bowls.
That's all well and good.
But there have been other guys who have won Super Bowls, okay?
You have a chance now to do something truly historic here.
And he's kind of laughing, giggling.
What's that?
I said, never in the history of our country have two former presidents, one of whom defeated the other, ever partnered up on a golf course to take on just you know, two guys off the street.
We have a chance to make history here today.
Well, suddenly, you know, there was a perceptible change in Tom's gaze.
He suddenly looked like that quarterback on those rare occasions, trying to lead his team down the field when the Patriots are trailing in the fourth quarter, and we defeated Bush Clinton over the last six holes.
Five up.
Five up as we're coming up the eighteenth.
Clinton looks over us uh at us, slump shouldered and rasped.
Boy, you guys sure uh don't take it easy on a couple of old presidents, do you?
And uh I responded, Welcome to the National Football League, Mr. President.
Couple of guys off the street.
Okay, look.
I have to take a break.
I'm moving along.
I got one more question to ask.
Do you have time for it?
Uh, Jim Nance Always by my side is the book, Father's Grace, Sports Journey, unlike any other.
Be right back.
Back to our final moments with Jim Nance, whose new book is out, already on the New York Times bestseller list, always by my side.
A father that doesn't mean don't get it.
Just telling you how widely popularly received it already has been.
Uh always by my side of Father's Grace and Sports Journey, unlike uh any other.
Jim, uh just a couple of minutes here.
Um to keep your childlike appreciation for what you do, despite all of these people that you have met.
Uh and by the way, I've got emails from people saying Jim Nance for president.
Uh I've got I've got people.
I like the sound of that, Rush.
I I got to tell you, uh well, go ahead.
You got a question about it.
I'd like to talk about politics because I I would love to one day maybe even think about it.
Go ahead.
Okay.
I the the the real question I want to know here is tell us something about Tiger Woods.
Uh and I got one broadcasting question after that.
Tell us something about Tiger Woods we don't know.
Well, uh Tiger, you see the game face, you you you know the focus stories about how he's locked in and how he can walk right past uh a guy like Jack Nicholas, uh the the very man he wants to you know break every record that Jack holds, but he it's this part of this genius that uh his his father instilled in him.
I one time got him uh beyond the game face, if you will.
He was coming up into my tower to be interviewed.
He graciously accepted, and my my daughter Caroline was just five years old at the time, and she was all excited.
She was going to meet the great Tiger Woods.
And I told Tiger on the way up to the towers, we're climbing the steps.
My daughter Caroline's gonna be up there.
She wants to, she just can't wait to meet you, Tiger.
So we walk in, and everyone's pointing and like giving me the shh.
She they're pointing underneath the chair.
So I'll I get it.
She's playing kind of a hide-and-seek thing here, and she's just nervous, as all kids are, about meeting some superstar celebrity.
So Tiger instantly breaks into the you know the game.
He he he drops his voice down to like a childlike cadence, and he's saying, I thought I was gonna see Caroline up here.
This is why I came here.
Caroline, where are you?
Are you over here?
He pushes back some curtains.
No, she's not there.
Being very theatrical about it, all the while, of course, knowing she's curled up in a ball underneath this one given chair, goes to another place.
Is she here?
No.
Gets down on all fours and crawls over to the chair.
Oh, there you are, peekaboo.
I'm Tiger.
Come on out, let's play.
I wanted to meet you.
And I just thought, what a wonderful snapshot, you know, of Tiger Woods, the tiger we so seldom get to see because everybody in the world's trying to get into that world and trying to get to be a part of his universe.
And it was just a lovely impromptu moment.
Jim, you're you're you've led a remarkable life.
You have a one of the most solid foundations that a human being could have.
I think it's fabulous that you've written the book to share that with people because it's inspirational.
You have been fabulous in this hour.
I thank you so much for the time.
Looking forward to see you on Tuesday out at uh Tory Pines.
Have a wonderful weekend.
And and uh and again, wish we had more time because I got people still wanting to know if you had to get rid of your Connecticut accent.
I'll find out.
I'll find out about that, and I'll tell them next week, whatever you tell me.
But again, thanks for the time and all the best.
I'm so grateful, Rush, for the time to talk to you, and uh you're just a great friend.
Thanks so much for having me on today.
You bet.
Jim Nance, always by my side.
You've just heard maybe about thirty pages of this book in this interview just now.
We'll be back and continue right after this.
Don't go.
It's open line Friday, and we'll get back to your phone calls.
Soon as our top of the hour time out.
Once again, thanks to Jim Nance uh for the full hour.
Just fascinating insight.
So great because people don't get to know him in the course of him doing his job.
Now you got to know a little of it.
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