The Grantland Rice Story Radio Program

Background

Grantland Rice was one of America's greatest and most widely read columnists of the first half of the 20th Century. Alongside Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon and Paul Gallico, 'Granny' Rice was one of a handful of influential sportswriters who translated the sporting events of the 1st half of the 20th Century to millions of America's sports fans and non-sports fans alike. Going beyond the print media, Rice began broadcasting over Radio with the 1930s Coca-Cola Top Notchers. Over the course of the next twenty-five years Grantland Rice appeared in over 2000 Radio programs, mostly sports interview programs.

Between 1921 and 1948 Rice also produced a series of over 200 sports shorts for film. Rice, already one of America's foremost sportswriters was famous for coining the name, The Four Horsemen, in referring to Notre Dame's famous 1924 backfield of Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. Rice also wrote a great deal of verse, mostly centered around sports, but expanding to all manner of topics. Rice was also famous for the oft cited credo, it's "not that you won or lost, but how you played the game." Another timeless example was his observation that, "A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public opinion."

During his over 50 yrs as a sportswriter and social commentator, Grantland Rice interviewed virtually every significant sports figure of the era. He wrote of Bobby Jones, the golfer, that he was unquestionably the finest golfer to ever play the game, writing "There is no more chance that golf will give the world another Jones than there is that literature will produce another Shakespeare." Tiger Woods, notwithstanding, that observation has held up remarkably well over the subsequent 80 years.

Grantland Rice's poetry was an even more enduring legacy of his remarkable career. Rice's 'Game Called' was adapted from prose he'd originally penned in 1910, but in 1948, he updated the passage to honor Babe Ruth's passing"

"Game Called by darkness — let the curtain fall.
No more remembered thunder sweeps the field.
No more the ancient echoes hear the call
To one who wore so well both sword and shield:
The Big Guy’s left us with the night to face
And there is no one who can take his place.

Game Called — and silence settles on the plain.
Where is the crash of ash against the sphere?
Where is the mighty music, the refrain
That once brought joy to every waiting ear?
The Big Guy’s left us lonely in the dark
Forever waiting for the flaming spark.

Game Called — what more is there for us to say?
How dull and drab the field looks to the eye
For one who ruled it in a golden day
Has waved his cap to bid us all good-bye.
The Big Guy’s gone — by land or sea or foam
May the Great Umpire call him “safe at home.”

Rice's poetry, sports guides, films, and radio programs kept Grantland Rice in the forefront of sports journalists the world over. In 1945, Rice published his autobiography, The Tumult and The Shouting, to tremendous reviews and public acceptance.

RCA Releases The Grantland Rice Story on Transcription

The passing of Grantland Rice in July 1954 marked the end of an era for many. Radio and Television had come into their own, most major sporting events were being broadcast live and the great sportwriters of the era had all but vanished. RCA Thesaurus obtained permission to serialize Rice's popular The Tumult and The Shouting via their transcription subscription service. Titled, The Grantland Rice Story, the 15-minute series comprised fifty-two sequential installments. First airing regionally as early as August 1955, the entire run soon appeared across the nation on various stations at varying times. Some aired it every weekday, some three days a week, some weekly.

The program's 15-minute installments closely followed the text of Rice's book. Jimmy Powers, himself a noted sportswriter and announcer of 30 years narrated, read and commented on Grantland Rice's story in the first person, as Rice had intended. Not quite the equivalent of today's audio-books, the material from The Tumult and The Shouting was augmented by contemporary asides and updates from Jimmy Powers.

The series literally begins at chapter one of Rice's book and moves through the entire autobiography. Powers intersperses the selections from the book with other timely updates and observations about Rice not contained in the book. The additional material helps expand the legend of Rice himself, places his work in context with the era, and provides insights not previoously available when the book was written some 11 years earlier.

The entire syndicated series apparently aired in several overlapping markets. Tracking the broadcasts was particularly difficult given the 15 minute format. As best as we can establish, there was at least one contiguous run of the entire 52-installment series airing between September 1955 and September 1956. The series also aired in many markets at the 15-minute mark, often 'buried' behind an on-the-hour broadcast of another program.

The series provides the most comprehensive insight into the career and experiences of one of the most important sportswriters in American history, during an era when the pen and typewriter was still as important to news media as the paper upon which it was printed.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the newspaper listings and the randesoteric website.

As indicated above, this series was 'filler' for many of the stations and markets in which it was broadcast. The dates below [in red] indicate a theoretical run only. While we were able to find a patchwork quilt of listings supporting those dates, no firm titles, program order, or synopsis accompanied those listings. As is often the case in an independently syndicated, transcribed series, the syndicated transcriptions were distributed in shotgun fashion across the U.S. and Canada.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2009 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]