Broadcasting in a condemned press box

Don Estep is Publisher Emeritus of The News Journal.

Because Corbin was playing in the state championship football game Friday I had an idea that some people on Facebook may enjoy hearing a portion of a broadcast from another finals’ game.

Thus, I started digging through boxes of cassette tapes that I have saved for over 50 years. I found the broadcasts of the 1976, 1977 and 1980 games, plus many other broadcasts.
I particularly liked the quality of the 1980 broadcast and especially the remarks of Coaches Archie Powers and Willard Farris.

Corbin won the state title that year over Ft. Campbell by a score of 16-7.

I edited out about ten minutes and loaded it on Facebook on Friday. Within a couple of hours I was astonished that there had been over 500 views already. The last time I checked on Saturday there had been over 2,500 views.

The response was far greater than I had ever imagined. And the feedback was most pleasing.

Several people thought it was funny when I said, “This pressbox was condemned. I don’t know why we are in it.”

We were broadcasting in it because that is where the officials had put us.

The pressbox, located at the old Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, was attached to the roof and it had become unsafe. We were told to not let but two or three people in it at a time.

But right after the game the first to arrive was Coach Farris. He was full of excitement. He said,”Those people out there are going to find out some day that we know how to play football in Corbin,” referring to the predictions the media had made before the game. Ft. Campbell was on a 22 game winning streak before the Hounds beat them.

Coach Powers’ remarks were super. I had described the players lifting him on their shoulders but then dropping him to the ground and Coach Powers said,
“They fumbled the ball all season and today they fumbled the old coach.”

Redhound all-state back Greg Taylor gained 122 yards in that game. There was a two minute part of the broadcast where i described him running the ball. It was too good to not share, so I put it on the Internet also. It got hundreds of views.

What I didn’t expect to find was some of my old morning show broadcasts in the 1960’s. I had completely forgotten about the jingles we had back then. I couldn’t wait to play the one that sang,”the Don Estep Show” for my grandchildren. I had not heard it for over 50 years.

There are so many tape recordings. One is from 1985 when the Lady Colonels of Whitley County won the state championship. I have many state tournament games on tape.

I enjoyed being in radio and especially doing sports broadcasting. Over a 20 year period I broadcast over 300 state tournament games without missing a game. I thourghly enjoyed following the Cumberland College Indians, especially with Coach Randy Vernon.

While searching through the boxes I found the broadcast of the game when I replaced Cawood Ledford at UK.

While researching the archives Cawood was quoted as saying it was the Ky.-Missouri game in 1960. I found out from the tape that it was the 1961 Ky,-Alabama game.

Regardless, it was a thrilling time in my life.

Radio many years ago was king because we didn’t have to compete with many TV stations and the Internet. It was dominate and had big audiences. And it was fun!