For more than 50 years, Hale's booming voice has poured from car radios and living-room TV sets, bringing games and sports news to the Bangor region. Memories live in those powerful pipes: that year your town's team made it to the state title game, or the perfect fall afternoon when you sat in the sun at a football game.
George Hale arrived in Bangor in 1953, as an announcer for WABI-AM. Within a year, he did his first sports broadcast, a high school basketball tournament at the Bangor Auditorium. He still calls those games every spring. Along the way, he's been a radio and TV announcer for UMaine sports, spent more than 20 years as sports anchor on WABI-TV, and called harness racing and stock car racing all over Maine. For almost 50 years, he hosted The George Hale Show on WABI-AM, which may have been the longest-running continuous radio show in the U
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Today, the 73-year-old still cohosts a morning show on WVOM. He's also chairman of the state harness racing commission and gambling commission, keeping him plenty active. The legend Hale was talking about? Former UMaine (and current Husson College) baseball coach John Winkin, who took six Black Bear teams to the College World Series -- and at age 80 plus, is still coaching. Change the age, and Hale could be talking about himself. Bangor Metro talked to Hale about his life in broadcasting, and the moments and athletes that stick out in his memory.
You were born in Cleveland, and grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., and New York City. How did you end up in Bangor?
I was working at a station in New Jersey, and I decided to come back home and look for a job somewhere else. One day, I was reading a trade publication on the Staten Island Ferry, and I saw that WABI, in Bangor, Maine, was looking for an announcer. I got home, went and got a map to figure out where Bangor, Maine, was, and said, "What the heck, I'd like to go see Maine." I came up for an audition, and a few days later I got a telegram -- everything was done by telegram in those days-saying the job was mine if I wanted it. My brother was an announcer in Pennsylvania, and he told me Bangor would be a great place toget my feet wet. I got in my beat-up old Chevy and I drove to Bangor to begin what was to be a very short stay. I anticipated maybe a year in Bangor before I moved on. Fifty years later, I'm still waiting to move on.
How did a year turn into more than 50?
It was a culture shock for me, coming here. But I became accustomed to it. The town had everything I wanted. Friendly people, low crime rate. I like the outdoors. It had the state university, and that became a major attraction for me because I loved the UMaine athletics. I had opportunities to go, like everyone else, but I kept saying to myself, "Why do I want to leave?" In those days you didn't have agents, you didn't sign contracts, and you moved a lot. Mostly, though, I was just happy here. I got married [to Jean, 34 years last month], and kids came along; it was a great place to raise kids.
What was the work like?
It was amazing. I was in on the very early days of TV, at WABI, the first station here. People were just getting TV. I had had it in New York, but it was just arriving here, and if you were on TV in Bangor, you were a big deal. People would just come up and touch you, like you were magic. They couldn't get to Eddy Fisher or Ed Sullivan, but they could get to me. I was loving it. It was really fun.
As a general announcer, you did a little bit of everything, from commercials to news, on radio and television. How did the sports thing get started?
Channel 5 televised the high-school basketball tournament, and we had to use everybody on staff, because it was a big deal. I did the commercials that first year, as a floor announcer. We had no videotape, and no film at that time, so the local commercials you did live, on the floor, during breaks. We didn't even have our own equipment. We rented it all, from RCA, and they came up from New York or Boston and engineered the whole thing. I remember my first commercial was for ladies underwear, and the guys were harassing me about it through the earpiece, while I'm on the air. It took every bit of my strength to get through those ladies' underwear commercials. The following year, I started doing play-by-play and color. I wasn't the only one, but it started me down this sports road.
You've covered just about everything in sports, haven't you?
For years and years, anything that happened here, we covered it. And along the way, because of my exposure on TV, other people outside the business would ask me to do announcing. So I later became a race announcer in harness racing and a stock car announcer. I did harness for Bangor track and some others, Skowhegan and Windsor. And then I went and did the auto-racing announcing at Unity Raceway, for about 10 years, in the 1970s. The first night I did harness racing, I had never done harness racing. They had to ask me to stop calling the drivers jockeys. They were drivers, not jockeys. The first night I did Unity Raceway, a woman got angry because I said something nice about a driver she didn't like and she threw a can of beer at me. That was my introduction into stock car racing. I'm not making this stuff up.
I've heard that you met Ted Williams, and a lot of other famous athletes. How did that happen?
Bud Leavitt was a very popular writer here, and he did an outdoor show on TV. It was wildly popular and lasted for years and years. I was often the studio director, and because of Bud, I would meet all the people that he would bring in. I got to meet Jimmy Piersall, Ted Williams, Bill Russell, Red Auerbach, all kinds of people.
What was doing the Bud Leavitt Show like?
Wonderful. Bud brought in some bear cubs one night, and asked me if he could turn them loose in the studio. I was a city guy, with no knowledge of bear cubs. None. I said sure. The next thing I know the bear cubs were crawling up the curtains, climbing over the lights, and the engineers were screaming at me, "Get those damn bear cubs the hell out of here!" I'm running around telling Bud, "Get the bears down." It was hilarious.
Tell me about some of your favorite sports moments in the area.
The 1964 College World Series was probably the watershed moment for Umaine athletics. Maine had never, except in maybe skiing, competed on the national level. In baseball, we had the state series with Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, and Maine, and the Yankee Conference of New England schools. It was pretty much regionalized. And when Maine went to the College World Series and did well, the state erupted. Incredible. Joe Ferris, who's now the mayor of Brewer, was the pitcher of record for Maine, and became the MVP. Maine didn't win, but they came close, and they had never competed at that level. And they beat Southern Cal, Arizona State, Seton Hall. The whole state was captivated. The other one was the Tangerine Bowl, in 1965. Maine's football team got to play there, and I broadcast that game on radio and TV. [Maine lost to Eastern Carolina, 31-0]. John Huard, from Waterville, was a linebacker on those teams and went on to the NFL. At that game, we felt like the whole state was listening to us. The Winkin College World Series was to follow. The Shawn Walsh hockey championships were to follow. But all of what you see today, the big stadium and the Alfond Arena, we didn't have any of that then.
What about the hockey program, under Shawn Walsh?
I didn't cover hockey. But the first time they won [1993], the state went bananas. Really, the state came to a standstill. People who didn't know a hockey puck from a piece of coal were involved with that. People were just awed by that, even more so than the other era. The first hockey championship was probably the largest thing that's ever happened in Maine, sportswise.
What about high school sports?
I never pick out one particular team, or one particular athlete. The Stearns teams, the Bangor teams, Cindy Blodgett. But there were many, many, many teams that for their own particular reason had their moment of glory.
But so many people identify you with the high school basketball tournament. You've even had your pants retired at Bangor Auditorium. What is it about that event that captures so many people's imaginations?
It is the thing in the winter. It's my town against your town. It's traditional. I call it the poor man's Olympics. Every town has a team. Every kid was a gym rat. Every kid wanted to play, and get to the Bangor Auditorium and play in that tournament. People would take a week's vacation and come down and stay at that tournament, and do nothing but go to those games, and some still do that today.
What makes this area special, sportswise?
It seems like we've produced more than our share of great athletes and great stories. I don't know that we've produced any more athletes than any other place. Athletics is very important to the young people in the area. And there are wonderful facilities: Mansfield Stadium, the Husson stadium, the university, the ice arenas, the Bangor Auditorium. There are very strong Little League programs, in peewee basketball, football, and baseball. There are great high school coaches. I don't know if we have any more talent than any other place, but when there is talent, it has a chance to rise to the top. The opportunity is here.
SIDEBAR: GEORGE HALE ON A FEW OF HIS FAVORITES
CINDY BLODGETT
Lawrence High School and Umaine basketball star "Cindy Blodgett did more than any other athlete has ever done in the state of Maine to promote her sport. She singlehandedly lifted girls' and women's basketball to an elevation it had never achieved before, and, to her great credit, should always be remembered for that. If there was a glass ceiling, she didn't break it, she shattered it. One time, she made a shot from half court to win a game. And I asked her, afterward, 'Gee, Cindy, were you shocked when that ball went in?' And she looked at me, as innocently as she could, and said, 'Not really. I practice those every day.'"
BILLY SWIFT
All-American pitcher and outfielder who spent 13 years in the big leagues, winning 21 games in 1993 "His numbers stand for themselves. Billy Swift was probably the best baseball player Maine has ever produced, and perhaps ever will produce. He could do it all. He was unassuming, not a bragging kind of a guy, but when you saw him in action, you just knew you were watching something special."
JOHN HUARD
UMaine football All-American, longtime NFL and Canadian Football League (CFL) linebacker and football coach "John Huard was the meanest, toughest football player I think I've ever known, pound for pound. He was just a one-man wrecking crew, but a super guy. He's gone and become very successful, a head coach [at Maine Maritime Academy and the CFL, among others]. Now, he's the guy that's installing FieldTurf all over the country [Huard is the Northeast distributor of FieldTurf, the popular artificial playing surface now in 10 NFL stadiums]."
MIKE BORDICK
Hampden Academy grad, Umaine baseball All-American, and 14-year major leaguer "I didn't know anything about Mike Bordick until [UMaine] lost a shortstop to graduation and I asked John Winkin, 'Who's going to get to play shortstop next year?' He said, 'Don't you worry. There's a kid at Hampden Academy that's going to stick you on your ear.' And he did. He was a blue-collar kind of guy, and a great guy. There's nothing bad you can say about Mike Bordick. Maybe, his father has poor eyesight. His father's an umpire. I'm joking. His father will have a hemorrhage over that."
GARY THORNE
Old Town native and once a part-time, high school assistant to Hale; Thorne now works as an announcer at ABC and ESPN "When we started broadcasting Umaine hockey, I was the program director, and Gary asked me if he could do hockey. I said, 'You're a kid from Old Town. What do you know about hockey?' He said that when he was working part-time in Washington, he worked on [NHL] Capitals games. I said, 'Well, I don't know one thing about hockey, so you're the guy.' That's how Gary got started. I didn't teach him a damn thing."
JOHN WINKIN
Longtime UMaine and Husson College baseball coach "John had a great run of teams that had many Maine players on them. He brought incredible talent here. Then he went out and scheduled all the best teams, bigtime teams. He would play Miami, Alabama, Texas, LSU. No one else in New England was doing that, and they won plenty of those games. John's philosophy was that you had to play the best teams in order to be a great team, and, in that era, we had the players who could do that."
SHAWN WALSH
Late UMaine hockey coach and winner of two NCAA championships "Shawn was a master recruiter, and he put together a great coaching staff. Shawn turned that program on its ear. He was a tremendous motivator. He was dedicated, and believed in what he was doing, and made other people believe. He recruited the best available hockey players, from anywhere. And he got them to come to Maine. And then he coached them to greatness. He was like John Winkin in that way.
