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In 1971 Irv Cross became the first African-American national NFL analyst, coming to work for CBS after spending nine years as a defensive back with the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams. Cross opened the door for minorities to become both play-by-play and analysts in the NFL.
But in 1975 Cross began a 15-year run as the co-anchor of the newly formatted NFL Today, a show that would forever change the way that football pregame shows covered the game.
Next month Cross will be honored at the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award. Past winners have included Jack Buck, Pat Summerall, Frank Gifford, John Madden and Dick Enberg. I spoke to Cross about the honor and about the NFL Today:
What is your proudest accomplishment?
Cross » That I was able to open the doors for so many talented, articulate and bright young African-American broadcasters. To this day guys come up to me and thank me for what I did for them but I was simply lucky myself that I was given the chance by CBS. I am proud of my work there and I had so many great people to work with both in front of and behind the cameras at CBS.
The NFL Today introduced so many new things to fans. What were some of the things you liked the best?
Cross » We had a great group of people with Brent Musburger, Phyllis George and Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder. I think that Phyllis was great because she introduced player interviews that showed them, and in many cases their families, in a non-football way. She was not an X’s and O’s person and never tried to be, which I think fans enjoyed. I enjoyed that we were live and could give fans the latest news on each game, then come back at halftime and go over every game with highlights. After the games we had the chance to tie things all together with our postgame show. So we were the first show covering the NFL to take you from before kickoff, through the halftime and then analyze how the games were played. Back then that was something no one else was doing.
As of late, Cross was the Director of Athletics at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota until May 2006.
Now both Cross and his wife, Liz serve as CEO’s of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Minnesota and he is still doing football analysis for the Minneapolis Fox station KMSP TV9.
A Sunday did you know?
In 1981 CBS made the choice of moving John Madden to their lead color analyst role. But who would be his partner? Vin Scully was the lead play by play man and the first four games he was paired with Madden.
Then Scully was gone to do the Major League Baseball Playoffs and World Series. Madden was paired with Pat Summerall for four games to see how the slow talking southerner would do. We after watching the Scully-Madden tapes vs. the Summerall - Madden tapes the CBS network brass concluded that Summerall's style was a great compliment to the brash Madden style.
Scully was upset with CBS who had told him that he would be doing the Super Bowl. He left the network to join NBC. Meanwhile Summerall and Madden became the NFL's signature broadcast team.
Here is a look at The NFL Today in 1975.
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