The voice that narrated some of the most memorable moments in sports has been silenced.
Emmy Award winning ABC Sports broadcaster Jim McKay, who hosted ABC’s Wide World of Sports and was part of the network’s Olympics coverage, died at age 86 from natural causes.
McKay memorably covered the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, reporting the news of the deaths of Israeli athletes by telling viewers “They’re all gone.”
McKay is now the latest ABC personality involved in those 1972 games to pass away. Chris Schenkel, the prime-time host of those Olympics on ABC, died in 2005. Peter Jennings, who was one of the reporters during the masscare, passed away that same year. And Roone Arledge, the architect of ABC Sports who ran the network’s coverage and fed McKay information during the tragedy, died in 2002.
That McKay died on the same day as The Belmont Stakes, which could feature the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, is a sad irony. Horse racing was McKay’s first television assignment, and the sport “captivated him like nothing else.”
Some of the lions of the industry have offered their memories of McKay. SportsCenter has featured interviews with Brent Musburger, Don Ohlmeyer, Al Michaels, Dick Ebersol and Keith Jackson.
McKay is the father of CBS Sports president Sean McManus.
