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Marty Aronoff on sitting in the broadcast booth –
“My elbow is one of the most televised elbows in the country, because it’s usually in the shot. Sometimes I tell friends of mine, ‘If you say something nice, I’ll write your name on my elbow.'”
A Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen, and this is Our Town. We’re talking to the busiest guy in Our Town, the man who knows all, sees all, and tells all, but nobody knows him. That’s why we’re so delighted to have him and a chance to talk to the real Marty Aronoff. Marty, welcome to Our Town!
Marty Aronoff: I’m glad to be here, Andy. Looking forward to it.
A Ockershausen: I don’t know how we caught you on the rebound, but you’re not doing a game tonight or you didn’t do one last night, but you got one coming up, right?
Marty Aronoff: I’m doing game five, the deciding game, tomorrow night for Fox Sports. The Dodgers at the Nationals with Kenny Albert
A Ockershausen: Right here in Wheatey-ville, right?
Marty Aronoff: Absolutely, and it’s one of the big events in Washington sports in a long time.
A Ockershausen: Oh, I tell you Marty, the town will be going crazy. I’m sorry that they have to take this fifth game, I thought they were going to win. I just felt so good at getting Kirshel out of there was a made thing, but it didn’t happen.
Anyway Marty, Janice just pointed out to me, being a dummy, I assume everybody knows Marty Aronoff is the world’s greatest statistician.
Marty Aronoff: Thank you.
A Statistician
A Ockershausen: Now tell us what a statistician is.
Marty Aronoff: I sit right next to the announcers at every event I work. I work mainly with ESPN, I do their Monday night football, I do college football for them. I do the NBA, major league baseball.
I’m observing the game. I give notes to the announcers that I don’t want to ever break up their rhythm when they’re saying things over the air, but as I make observations I’ll give them notes. If something happens that I think sort of has a historical bent to it, something today that may have related to a game in past years, I’ll pass that on.
I’m talking to the people down in the production truck, in the television truck, about graphics we can put up to supplement what the announcers are saying. I’ve been doing it full-time since 1983 and I actually started part-time in 1975, so it’s been a long and fruitful career.
A Ockershausen: Long and wonderful career! Now tell us about the early days. You are a Washingtonian. A native.
Wilson High School, Penn State and Northwestern
Marty Aronoff: I am, I was born in Washington, I went to Wilson High School.
A Ockershausen: It’s our neighbor up here, WMAL.
Marty Aronoff: Absolutely, and I graduated in ’56, I went to Penn State for four years, majored in mathematics. Then went to Northwestern and got a masters in business, and I came back here to Washington, I worked for the federal government for 17 years at mainly what was called the National Bureau of Standards.
A Ockershausen: I remember that so well, my god.
Marty Aronoff: Then I started doing the statistics part-time as sort of a hobby with a friend of mine, Warner Wolf, and loved it so my I decided to see if I could be maybe the first person to make a full-time career out of it.
A Ockershausen: Why would you go to Penn State? Does that offer some course that, obviously is has nothing to do with statistics, but you picked Penn State, obviously.
Marty Aronoff: Well, having lived in the city all my life and my closest friend who I was with in high school had been admitted to Penn State. He said, “You know, Marty, you might like to go to this school.” I went up there with him and loved the campus.
A Ockershausen: You could ride back and forth together.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Not a bad idea at that time.
Marty Aronoff: Absolutely.
A Ockershausen: That was in the early ’60’s, right?
Marty Aronoff: ’56 to ’60, I was there. Joe Paterno wasn’t even the head coach then, he was just the quarterback coach when I was there.
A Ockershausen: Right, he was on the staff. Who was the head coach?
Marty Aronoff: Rip Engle.
A Ockershausen: Oh yeah, that’s a world famous name, isn’t it?
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: He was so famous for doing so much.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: You didn’t do any statics work there, you were just a student.
Marty Aronoff: I was a student.
A Ockershausen: Well, good for you.
Marty Aronoff: My senior year I had a sports show on their local FM radio station, and I also helped out doing the Penn State baseball broadcast baseball, but that was it. I had nothing to do with actually hands on until I started doing the statistics with Warner in 1975.
A Ockershausen: Well, you know, it’s a strange way that you came from Uncle Sam to go to work. Were you doing mathematical work when you worked for Uncle Sam?
National Capital Transportation Agency and the Washington DC Metro
Marty Aronoff: I was and I was doing a lot of computer programming at the time. I had a staff of people and we were actually developing information systems for other government agencies, and planning transportation in NE corridor. Actually my first job I had was working on planning the subway system here in Washington Metro.
A Ockershausen: How about that?
Marty Aronoff: I started doing that ten years before they ever opened up the system. I actually worked, it was called the National Capital Transportation Agency.
A Ockershausen: Marty, how do you feel about how this system has come along? Because you’re an insider, but you’re also an outsider. I hear a lot about, this morning I heard a conflict about how bad Metro is right now, with several jam ups. Which probably are going to happen in that big system, but from your perspective, not as a statistician but as a local resident-
Marty Aronoff: As a user.
A Ockershausen: … as a user, what is your perspective on Metro?
Marty Aronoff: Well, I think they’ve done a good job with when they initiated it, my job in the planning part was helping to determine where to put the stations in terms of where the best residential areas.
A Ockershausen: Population.
Marty Aronoff: Population exposure, and so that was my job. Since then I’ve been a user of Metro ever since it opened. I think that they now have an administrator in there who’s trying to make up for a lot of lost time, because there are a lot of improvements that need to take place that didn’t happen over 30-40 years and now, unfortunately, a lot of riders are getting frustrated because there’s delays and so forth.
I myself, I use it to go to the airport all the time. It’s easier for me-
A Ockershausen: Wonderful.
Marty Aronoff: … then trying to park down there.
A Ockershausen: They used to be, many years ago before they put in that new terminal, the train didn’t stop at the airport, it stopped across the street.
Marty Aronoff: Right.
A Ockershausen: At least now you’re in the airport when it goes. Marty, as an outsider, and I’m an outsider, you’re a partial insider, I’ve seen Metro from the ground up. Lived it in Our Town, and I think it is a wonderful, wonderful system that needs to be fixed!
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: There’s no middle ground. They got to shut it down to fix it?
Marty Aronoff: Oh they do. I mean, this administrator now is saying, “I apologize to the folks for the inconvenience, but if we don’t do it now and make the massive effort with the funds we have, and we need more funds, then it’s just years from now things will even get worse.”
A Ockershausen: Well, we’re away from sports, Marty, but your perspective is very important. I think it’s important to people in Our Town to know what we’re facing. Now let’s get back to the Marty Aronoff that I know. People don’t realize that you sit with the broadcaster. You’re right there in the booth. You’re not a spotter, but you give the information to the announcer.
In the Booth, Freelancing to Full-Time
Marty Aronoff: Right, and every now and then when they’re showing a shot on camera with the announcers, I’ll hear in my headset, “Move to your left. Get outside.”
A Ockershausen: They get you.
Marty Aronoff: My elbow is one of the most televised elbows in the country, because it’s usually in the shot. Sometimes I tell friends of mine, “If you say something nice, I’ll write your name on my elbow.”
A Ockershausen: That’s wonderful! That’s super. Also, they’ve got to pay you more when you get on camera, right?
Marty Aronoff: Well yes.
A Ockershausen: Give them a bigger bill. Now are you a salaried person with ESPN?
Marty Aronoff: I am now. Two years ago they made me a full-time employee.
A Ockershausen: I see.
Marty Aronoff: I’ve always been a freelancer-
A Ockershausen: Right, I knew that.
Marty Aronoff: … but I still also worked with Fox Sports when I do the baseball with Kenny Albert, Comcast I do a lot of local events here in DC.
A Ockershausen: Well, does Kenny hire you or is it the network?
Marty Aronoff: Well, Kenny tells the network, “Here’s the person I want to do this.”
A Ockershausen: I’ve got to have him, I gotcha.
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
The New York Titans and Washington Redskins Marching Band
A Ockershausen: Now, the names of people that you’ve worked with are legendary in the sports business. I go back so far to a name you may have never heard of, but I was a spotter for a guy named Harry Wismer.
Marty Aronoff: Sure. When he did the Redskins-
A Ockershausen: Absolutely, and then he bought the team in New York.
Marty Aronoff: The New York Titans, yeah.
A Ockershausen: Jim Gibbons was the announcer and I worked for Jimmy and learned all about the broadcast business from them, from the booth. Painting the picture. Wismer had a problem, he would paint the picture of people whether they were there or not, but he got away with it. He was a name dropper.
Marty Aronoff: Right. Oh no, I remember-
A Ockershausen: Broadcasters are name droppers, right?
Marty Aronoff: He did it from old Griffith stadium.
A Ockershausen: That is exactly right, which was a very good football stadium.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: He was sitting right down on top of the field.
Marty Aronoff: I remember the bit teepee they had up top.
A Ockershausen: You know what, Marty, they had three teepees. They had the band in one. The Redskins, not their marching band, that was George Marshall’s passion was the marching band.
Marty Aronoff: Right.
A Ockershausen: Now the Redskins marching band, they don’t have the headdresses anymore, have you noticed?
Marty Aronoff: Yes, I know.
A Ockershausen: It’s become just a regular college marching band.
Marty Aronoff: Exactly.
A Ockershausen: They used to have the chief stand on the drum and do that.
Marty Aronoff: Oh yeah.
Sports Announcers and Celebrities – Mike Tirico, Sean McDonough, Jon Miller, and Joe Morgan
A Ockershausen: We’ve lost something with that, Marty, because it was, it was part of Our Town, and it was a great part of it. Now the names of the announcers and the celebrities you have worked for are legendary. Tirico now, he’s gone to NBC. That was a surprise.
Marty Aronoff: He went to NBC. I was with Mike Tirico for 21 years.
A Ockershausen: I know that, Marty.
Marty Aronoff: I did college football when he did it, I did money NFL, I did his NBA, and he’s one of the most personable-
A Ockershausen: Delightful human being.
Marty Aronoff: … wonderful people that I’ve ever known anywhere, not just in the business.
A Ockershausen: He did some golf for ABC, I remember.
Marty Aronoff: Oh yeah.
A Ockershausen: Or ESPN, which is one and then same.
Marty Aronoff: He still does, yes.
A Ockershausen: He was very good on golf. I love Tirico.
Marty Aronoff: He does anything. He’s as versatile an announcer as there is in the business.
A Ockershausen: Well, Marty, of all those names, how about Sean McDonough’s back now.
Marty Aronoff: I work with Sean, Kenny. I work with Jon Miller on Monday.
A Ockershausen: We miss Jon Miller.
Marty Aronoff: I work with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan on Sunday night baseball for 14 years.
A Ockershausen: Oh my god, Marty.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah. I was there.
A Ockershausen: No wonder you’re traveling! I think we lost something in our market, I know home team sports lost something when Jon Miller lost the job with the Orioles.
Marty Aronoff: Right.
A Ockershausen: That was a great, great team with Lowenstein.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah, John Lowenstein.
A Ockershausen: He worked with Miller sometimes.
Marty Aronoff: Yes, he did.
Baltimore Orioles’ fans upset over losing announcer Jon Miller
A Ockershausen: They were so great, but Mr Angelos didn’t like him.
Marty Aronoff: No. He got rid of Jon Miller the same time Cal Ripkin retired, and there were more fans over there upset at losing Jon Miller than Ripkin.
A Ockershausen: I believe it! He was such a big part of the organization. Great announcer.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah. I see him once in a while, I’ll go out and work-
A Ockershausen: West coast, right?
Marty Aronoff: … Giants games and he and I, we did a game, Giants at St Louis game this year. After the game he and I were leaving Bush Stadium at the same time, we were on a street corner. For 45 minutes we stood there reminiscing. Now it’s past midnight, we’re standing there just talking away about things that happened, 20-30 years ago.
A Ockershausen: Crabtown on the bay.
Marty Aronoff: Absolutely!
A Ockershausen: He loved Baltimore, too, I know that.
Marty Aronoff: Oh yeah.
A Ockershausen: He was very fortunate. Now in addition to these people, how about for CBS? You ever do any work for CBS?
Announcers and Celebrities – Dick Stockton and Glen Brenner
Marty Aronoff: I worked with Dick Stockton for 30 years. That’s when I made the decision to try to do this full-time. I left the government and for two years I actually was the sports producer for Glen Brenner. The great Glen Brenner.
A Ockershausen: Channel nine.
Marty Aronoff: Glen Brenner and I were really close friends. Every night when I was working for the government, I would meet Glen at 7 o’clock at channel nine, and we would run three miles. We’d run down Wisconsin Avenue and run back. Finally he got the position to hire a producer for himself, and he turned to me one day and said, “Guess who my producer’s going to be?” I said, “Who?” He said, “It’s going to be you.” I said, “I’ve never done it.”
A Ockershausen: Yeah.
Marty Aronoff: He said, “I want somebody who knows sports and who is a close friend.”
A Ockershausen: He can rely on you.
Marty Aronoff: I worked for Glen for two years.
A Ockershausen: Well, you couldn’t have had a better man to work for, I’ll say that. I’ll also say we’re going to take a break here, Mart, and come back and finish talking about the local sports scene. Which is not your expertise because you travel too much.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
A Ockershausen: We’re talking with “The Book”, Marty Aronoff. I call him “The Book” because he knows more than anybody I’ve ever known in or around sports in this way, he’s so popular. Marty, we’re talking about your work with Glen, but you mentioned a thing about Warner and getting the time with Warner. Was he doing the basketball at the time?
Sports Announcer Warner Wolf
Marty Aronoff: He was at channel nine and they got the contract to do the Washington Bullets in the 1974-75 season. I was doing a lot of traveling for the government, and Warner and I were really good friends. I said, “If I’m ever in a city where you’re doing a game, why don’t I come over and just sit with you and throw some stuff at you?” He said, “Great!” He was going a game in Philadelphia a few days later and he said, “Drive up with me.” I did and it was the first game we worked. The middle of the second quarter I handed him a note, Steve misses his last five shots. Warner takes off his headset and says, “Really?” I said to Warner, “If he hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have given you the note.”
A Ockershausen: You didn’t make it up!
Marty Aronoff: From then on … Then, his analyst, a fellow named Chuck Taylor, hated to fly, and I got the bug so Chuck and I would drive to all these cities where they had a telecast. Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, and that was the way I started doing more games.
A Ockershausen: You drove! Oh my god, that’s incredible.
Marty Aronoff: That’s how I started my stats career.
A Ockershausen: Well, I know that the ’78 team, I mention this because he was sitting right in that seat, one of the best basketball announcers I ever heard was Sonny, Sam, and Frank Herzog.
Marty Aronoff: Herzog, for the radio, sure!
A Ockershausen: Oh, he was so good!
Marty Aronoff: Well now I did the television of the finals.
A Ockershausen: Of the series, right.
Sports Announcer Brent Musburger
Marty Aronoff: I did, with Brent Musburger, I was working it for CBS. Some of the games, remember, were tape delayed and they showed them at 11:30 at night.
A Ockershausen: Seattle.
Marty Aronoff: In Seattle, but I’d travel back and forth with Brent.
A Ockershausen: Well I do remember vividly and that was such an important thing. I think that was the only championship that Abe Pollin ever had.
Marty Aronoff: That’s right.
A Ockershausen: In 70 years of owning two franchises.
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: One championship.
Marty Aronoff: Basketball was his passion.
A Ockershausen: Oh, I know that. He loved-
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Well, he won it in ’78 in Seattle and lost it in ’79 in Washington.
Marty Aronoff: Right.
A Ockershausen: I happened to be a part of it with Mr Jurgensen, who was doing color with Herzog at the time. You mentioned James Brown, one of the most delightful men in all of broadcasting.
Beloved Sports Announcer James “JB” Brown
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: He worked a lot with JB.
Marty Aronoff: I worked with JB and here’s a very interesting story. I worked on the basketball telecast for the Bullets with JB, and one day I said to JB, “Would you ever be interested in doing any local television?” He said, “Well, I’ve never done it before and I’d have to learn.” I was working at channel nine then, and I went to the Dave Pierce, who was in change of the broadcasting-
A Ockershausen: Sports section, right?
Marty Aronoff: … and I said to him, “This James Brown has real potential. If I work with him, do you think we might use him as a fill in sometime?” Sonny Jurgensen, at the time, was our weekend anchor.
A Ockershausen: I remember that vividly.
Marty Aronoff: Sonny would try to beg off sometime-
A Ockershausen: He was in broadcast there.
Marty Aronoff: He’d try to beg off and sometimes I’d call him to remind him, “You’re supposed to be on this weekend.” Margo, his wife, would say, “Sonny’s not here right now.” Anyway, I went to Dave Pierce and I said, “Why don’t we start using James Brown at times instead of Sonny?”
James Brown came in and the first night he was on was New Years Eve, and he was looking at the teleprompter, we had it all rehearsed. Suddenly the teleprompter stops. James suddenly looks down at his script, and I signal to him, “Look at the camera!” He looks up and says, “Hi folks!” That was the first night he ever did local television.
A Ockershausen: With that beautiful smile.
Marty Aronoff: In his autobiography he mentions how I started him on that, yeah.
A Ockershausen: Well, he absolutely should. He worked with a friend of mine at Xerox.
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: I first met him through them, and after talking to him and knowing him, I suggested to him, “You have a beautiful voice. Have you ever done any radio work about jazz and music?” Because we have a guy named Felix Grant who’s world famous, but Felix is not going to last forever, and you have such presence, James, JB.” He never forgot that.
I talked to him about it, of course nothing happened. You got him into TV where he just took off right away. I know I was right about his voice.
Marty Aronoff: Oh absolutely, and he has such presence on the air.
A Ockershausen: Oh my god.
Marty Aronoff: Everybody who ever works with him on any of the football shows, I did some basketball games with him, I was his analyst. They love having him around.
The Roone Arledge and Warner Wolf story
A Ockershausen: You had so many good people to work with, and JB’s right on the top. Warner, of course, there’s another story but I might as well tell it. Roone Arledge and I collaborated to get him hired. We wanted to get him out of town, so we got ABC TV to hire him, and Warner got the Roone Arledge treatment. Soon as Warner got the job and started doing it, Arledge ignored him. Warner will tell you that to this day.
Marty Aronoff: I know he did.
A Ockershausen: He won’t even return his phone calls.
Marty Aronoff: He went up to do the Monday night baseball with Bob Prince and Uecker, and Warner had said he felt all of a sudden uncomfortable there, yeah.
A Ockershausen: Roone lived in his own world, as you know.
Marty Aronoff: Right.
A Ockershausen: He’s the only man that rented the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth to cover the Faulklin’s war. That’s a true story. Of the people you have worked with, who stands out among names we may not have heard of?
Sports Announcers Dick Stockton, Mike Patrick, Vin Scully
Marty Aronoff: Well, among people we have heard of, Dick Stockton I said I work with for 30 years, I did the NBA finals with Dick for ten years. The great Laker-
A Ockershausen: Radio or television?
Marty Aronoff: Television. Dick was named the lead play by play guy for CBS and the NBA. We did all those Laker-Celtic series for years, and I was with Dick, I did his football. Then when he went over to Turner I did all his games. I’ve worked with Musburger, I started with him in 1977 and like I said I worked with him when the Bullets won the championship.
A Ockershausen: Oh my.
Marty Aronoff: Mike Patrick and I go back for years and years.
A Ockershausen: He’s our guy, he works at channel seven, you know?
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Mike’s one of our guys.
Marty Aronoff: I’ve worked with Mike all these years. Many of the top people in the business, I’ve been very fortunate.
A Ockershausen: Katie Couric is another WMAL graduate-
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: … but we won’t get into that. There’s so much that you have lived through. Now the Scully retirement that has been on for a year, and it’s such a sad thing. I don’t know why he quit, because the Dodgers are not through.
Marty Aronoff: Right, but at a certain point I can see where somebody-
A Ockershausen: He probably got tired.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah, and he’s a devoted family person, and he’s going to be 89 years old. At some point-
A Ockershausen: Retired.
Marty Aronoff: … you say, “That’s it.”
A Ockershausen: He’s a west coast guy, of course.
Marty Aronoff: Now he’s a west coast, whereas he grew up in Brooklyn. He started the business-
A Ockershausen: Went to Fordham.
Marty Aronoff: … at Fordham in 1950.
A Ockershausen: He worked with Rhett Barber.
Marty Aronoff: Yes he did.
A Ockershausen: God, I remember listening to those Flatbush games.
Marty Aronoff: Sure.
A Ockershausen: Flatbush Avenue.
On Retirement
Marty Aronoff: Announcers I’m working with now, I have told them from my own standpoint, I’m 78, “If you think I’m starting to slip at all and I’m not living up to the so-called Aronoff brand, you tell me and that’s the time I’ll retire.” Because I’ll never put an announcer at risk because suddenly I’m slowing up.
A Ockershausen: They have to trust you implicitly.
Marty Aronoff: It’s all trust in my business. When I hand an announcer a note, he’s going to go over the air with it to sometimes millions of people.
A Ockershausen: All the time.
Marty Aronoff: If I’m wrong, he looks bad, and so there’s a tremendous reliance. I guess that’s why I’ve had the career I’ve had is because I’ve built up a pretty good trust factor.
A Ockershausen: With the guys you work with, do you have, obviously a production meeting with them?
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: There’s certain things you’re going to be looking for to help them with.
Marty Aronoff: Sure. Yes.
A Ockershausen: You didn’t ad lib it, you had a plan when you went into the game.
Marty Aronoff’s Message to Young People in the Business
Marty Aronoff: Oh yeah, and a lot of times I’ll work a game in the city one night, fly all morning to the next city, and then have the game that night. When I get to the hotel I go online now, I study. They send me notes at the hotel on that night’s game, and every game I make sure I’m well prepared. I never take anything for granted.
I tell the younger people who do what I do with other announcers, “Just because you’ve done four games in a week, you can’t take tonight off. You’re getting paid to do tonight’s game, there are a lot of people who work for days on that particular event, and you’ve got to show up.”
A Ockershausen: When you show up, you’ve got to work.
Marty Aronoff: Nothing you’ve done in the past counts, it’s tonight’s game.
A Ockershausen: Yeah, because that’s the beauty of sports television, it’s instant. You can’t record-
Marty Aronoff: You can’t go back and change it.
A Ockershausen: You can’t change it. It’s right there.
Marty Aronoff: It’s the optimum reality television.
A Ockershausen: I would say to you that early ’70’s when ABC Monday night football started, because of WMAL’s promise I got to be very tight with Howard Cosell.
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: I said to him one time, “We’re looking for a sports announcer on channel seven.” He said, “Well, I’ll tell you, there’s a kid up in Boston named Stockton that I think is going to be great, and there’s another one in Chicago named Musburger.” I’ll never forget those two names.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: I said, “Howard, we can’t afford those guys, they’re in the big time market.” We went to Dallas and hired a guy from Dallas. You know, Dallas don’t pay any money, so we knew we could make a deal.
Marty Aronoff: You had a reason to attract somebody here.
A Ockershausen: Stockton and Musburger were big names in those towns, they were both local.
Marty Aronoff: Dick and I spent so much time together, when he was married to Leslie Visser, Leslie-
A Ockershausen: They’re not married anymore?
Marty Aronoff: No, they haven’t been married, and Dick’s remarried and so is Leslie. Leslie and I were very close.
A Ockershausen: She’s terrific.
Marty Aronoff: She would say, “Sometimes at home, when Dick and I disagreed, I would say to Dick, ‘You know, you’re closer to Marty Aronoff than you are to me sometimes.'” That became a running joke with us.
A Ockershausen: The last time I saw Leslie was when the stadium opened here in 1997. What is it called now? Raljon.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: After they closed RFK in ’96, in ’97 she was here along with the name Bill Brown, who was with home teams then went to Fox.
Marty Aronoff: Absolutely, yeah.
A Ockershausen: Marty, how about the people you don’t get along with, you don’t work them if you don’t get along, right?
Marty Aronoff: Yeah. I cannot say-
A Ockershausen: You’re just a sweetheart.
Marty Aronoff: Well, thank you.
A Ockershausen: It’s true.
The Broadcast Business is One Big Family
Marty Aronoff: I can honestly say that one of the nice things about being in the business, and I’m talking about not just announcers but camera people, audio people, the crew, is that I have wonderful relationships. Wherever I go around the country, it’s like old home day for me. I see people who I haven’t seen in a few weeks or months, but we relate right away.
A Ockershausen: You get reacquainted all the time.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Well, we will be right back. Marty, talk about your travel, because I got a lot of questions for you. We’re on, Marty Aronoff, this is Our Town with Andy Ockershausen, and ain’t it a wonderful life, Marty?
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Frequent Flyer Benefits
A Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen and Our Town, talking to Marty Aronoff. Marty, about your travel, 300,000 miles plus. I have one question and then we’ll get into your sports career. What do you do with the mileage?
Marty Aronoff: Well, every now and then I’ll take a trip with a friend myself.
A Ockershausen: Good for you!
Marty Aronoff: Steve Buckhantz, who of course you well know, Steve has all my mileage cards for the different airlines. We have a standard rate, so much for so many thousand miles. I’ll get an email for Steve that he and Shelley are going to go to some remote island, they’ve already checked, they’re going to use 50,000 of my miles. Check is in the mail. I have a couple of other friends that I do that.
A Ockershausen: Good for you, Marty!
Marty Aronoff: I just accumulate them and sometime, when I want to use them, I’ve gone to Europe on them and so forth.
A Ockershausen: Good for you. Well, you should.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: That’s a lot of time in the air. Do you ever travel first class?
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: Good for you, Marty, I’m glad to hear it. I found out in my life as I got some degree of respectability and some financial help, that I’m not going to ride in the back anymore.
Marty Aronoff: No.
A Ockershausen: Because I’ve got mileage.
Marty Aronoff: I appreciate, actually, I like flights because there are no phone calls, I can read and everything. When you’re in first class-
A Ockershausen: It does make a difference.
Marty Aronoff: Especially when the flight attendants know your status because they already have it there. I sit down, “Mr Aronoff, make sure if there’s anything you need, we’re here.”
A Ockershausen: Well, we’ve been around the world and so 25 years with Sonny and Margo Jurgensen. We always ride up front and we pay cash. How about that? That’s on the record, I will tell you that. Marty, tell us the story about you doing these stats for the teams, you’re sitting at ringside or court side. I wonder what you’re doing down there.
Marty Aronoff: I have been the Washington Bullets game statistician since 1979. This I think will be my 37th year, and I’m the person who actually calls every play in the game. Every rebound, every shot, every steal. I have a person to the left who enters everything I call and a fellow to the right who helps me in case I fall behind on a play, if there’s a lot happening. That becomes what we call the box score, the official record for the NBA of that game.
A Ockershausen: For the team, they can now look at who got the rebounds and what they did.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah. Every team, every franchise has to have what they call the stat crew who actually develops all the statistics for the game and it becomes the record. I’ve been the Bullets/Wizards person all these years, and I’m probably the longest running stat person in the league.
A Ockershausen: Let me ask you a question, where do you not work? You don’t do high school anymore.
Marty Aronoff: Where do I not work?
A Ockershausen: You weren’t in Penn State for the massacre this weekend, were you?
Marty and John Aronoff Fellowship – Penn State
Marty Aronoff: Well, ironically I was up there the next day because I have a big scholarship fund. My son passed away ten years ago-
A Ockershausen: The school honored you, I knew that.
Marty Aronoff: … and I started the Marty and John Aronoff Fellowship, and we have funded out of that fellowship now 25 people. Once a year, and it happened to be last Sunday night, they have a dinner where all the donors like myself and the recipients come. I always make it up there and I had three of the students at my table who were on the Aronoff scholarship.
A Ockershausen: Wow, that is great!
Marty Aronoff: For them to tell me how their families could not have afforded sending them to a prestige school like Penn State without my help means more to me than anything I’ve ever done.
A Ockershausen: They can’t pay you for that, Marty, that’s something that-
Marty Aronoff: You write a check that’s one thing, but when you get the feedback like that-
A Ockershausen: We enjoy the same relationship with the Don Bosco school here.
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: To see these kids and what they get out of the scholarship, because they couldn’t get there without you, without my wife Janice, and she’s supporting these kids. It means so much that it’s Our Town.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah.
A Ockershausen: Because they’re going to be running Our Town someday.
Marty Aronoff: Sure.
A Ockershausen: Who’s going to replace you Marty? Nobody can ever replace you.
Marty Aronoff: Well, there’ll be somebody. I mean, you know, like you mentioned some of the announcers from the old days with the football team. It’s nice-
A Ockershausen: Arch McDonald, you and I go back to Arch.
Marty Aronoff: Oh sure! You know who I still keep in touch with and who had a paragraph in his book about me on the importance of statisticians was Bob Wolf. Bob and I talk once in a while on the phone.
A Ockershausen: I saw him here, he was here when they opened the stadium.
Marty Aronoff: Yes.
A Ockershausen: Then we put him in the hall of fame and I saw Bob then.
Marty Aronoff: Yep.
A Ockershausen: He was a great, great friend. Way back with Jim Gibbons, those guys sort of grew up, but they all started doing big things. Bob went to New York, well he became huge in New York.
Marty Aronoff: Oh yeah. People-
A Ockershausen: How about Enberg? You ever work with Dick Enberg?
Marty Aronoff: Never worked with-
A Ockershausen: I see he’s retiring.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah. Never worked with Dick Enberg, never worked with Al Michaels, and those were two of the certainly most prominent guys.
A Ockershausen: Tirico’s right up there as far as I’m concerned.
Marty Aronoff: Oh yeah.
A Ockershausen: He’s world class.
The Legend
Marty Aronoff: I’m sort of flattered because the guys in the business who do what I do call me “Legend”. That’s their nickname for me, so whenever they see me, “Hey ‘Legend’!”
A Ockershausen: You are a legend, Marty!
Marty Aronoff: Aw stop it, come on.
A Ockershausen: You’ve got to embrace it. Well I see you have a lot of team memorabilia in your closet?
Marty Aronoff: There’s certain items that I can’t-
A Ockershausen: When we do an auction for money, I’m going to call you, Marty.
Marty Aronoff: Yeah. There are certain things that I do keep, yeah.
A Ockershausen: We used to do it on television, auction it off with people, like David Falk would bring in jerseys and so forth.
Marty Aronoff: Sure, I see David he always comes up and says hi.
A Ockershausen: I’ll bet he does. How about Donald? Do you ever do tennis?
Marty Aronoff: No, never did tennis. I’ve done basketball, baseball, and football, and I did a little hockey with Gary Thorne.
A Ockershausen: Right here?
Marty Aronoff: No, when he was doing ESPN. Gary’s another person who I work with who I love, one of my favorite people in the business.
A Ockershausen: Boy, you’ve got so many favorites. Certainly in Our Town there’s nobody has the stature of Marty Aronoff.
Marty Aronoff: Well, thank you.
A Ockershausen: That’s been true forever, because I recall your days with JB, and I know what you did for Sonny, and I know what you did for all these people to make them look good.
Marty Aronoff: Thank you.
A Ockershausen: Glen Brenner used to do it, and then George, did you ever work with George Michael?
Sports Announcer George Michael
Marty Aronoff: No, but I know George.
A Ockershausen: Yeah, well.
Marty Aronoff: Oh, I worked with George on pre-season football.
A Ockershausen: He did some Redskins pre-season.
Marty Aronoff: Well, when he got the contract to do it, suddenly I got a phone call from George and he said, “Marty, it’s George Michael. You’re the third person on my phone list. First was the producer and then the director and now you. You’re going to be doing the stats on our telecast, here’s what I’m going to pay you, here’s your per diem, and you’re not going to say no.” I did George’s pre-season football.
A Ockershausen: He did, didn’t he? George worked hard, you got to say that about the guy.
Marty Aronoff: He worked hard and he used me to critique after the game, critique the broadcast, too.
A Ockershausen: He went back and listened, and I knew George quite well. As a matter of fact, he worked in New York. He was doing some Jets and they sent me a tape of it, that I said, “No, he’s not good enough for the Redskins.” George never forgot that. Radio that way.
Marty Aronoff: Well yeah.
A Ockershausen: Well, Marty, this has been a delightful time. You are a knowledgeable fan. You are a legend!
Marty Aronoff: Thank you very much.
A Ockershausen: To have you spend time here when you could be making money, because we don’t pay. Nobody gets paid on this show. That’s the beauty of it.
Marty Aronoff: Well, you know how I get paid is my 50 years of friendship with you.
A Ockershausen: Well, it’s more than that. It’s been great. This is Our Town with Marty Aronoff and the man is a legend, and he’s my legend too. I’m so glad you’re in Our Town, Marty.
Marty Aronoff: Thank you.
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Our Town Season One, with your host Andy Ockershausen. New Our Town podcast episodes are released each Tuesday and Thursday. We welcome your comments and suggestions on how you like the show, or who you’d like to hear from next. Catch us on Facebook at Our Town DC, or visit our website at ourtowndc.com. Our special thanks to WMAL radio in Washington DC for hosting our podcasts.
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