[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3307-3308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 F_____
                                 

                        TRIBUTE TO JACK CRISTIL

 Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to commend the 
remarkable 58-year career of Jack Cristil, one of our Nation's 
legendary radio broadcasters and voice of the Mississippi State 
University Bulldogs. Jack called his last game this past Saturday as 
Mississippi State defeated the University of Tennessee in men's 
basketball.
  For the better part of six decades, Mississippi State fans welcomed 
Jack's professionalism and his unambiguous play-by-play descriptions, 
free from hyperbole or favoritism, onto their radios. His distinctive 
voice and irreplaceable wit will be missed.
  Jack grew up in Memphis, TN, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia 
and Latvia. After discovering radio broadcasts of sporting events at 
the age of six, he knew exactly what he was going to do with his life.
  After high school, Jack went on to study broadcast journalism at the 
University of Minnesota. From there, he worked the minor league 
baseball circuit in the Southeast before moving to Clarksdale, MI, to 
broadcast high school football and basketball games. In the summer of 
1953, legendary Mississippi State athletic director C.R. ``Dudy'' Noble 
hired him for $25 a game. Now 58 years later, Cristil has covered 636 
football games and 1,538 basketball games, roughly 63 percent of all 
football games played by Mississippi State and about 55 percent of all 
basketball games.
  It was not only the number of games he covered that is of note today, 
it was at times the significance of the games themselves. During the 
1963 NCAA men's basketball tournament, Mississippi State ignored an 
unwritten rule in our State that prohibited State universities from 
playing integrated teams. By sneaking out of town in the dark of night, 
and despite protests from our State's Governor and police, the Bulldogs 
were able to play an integrated Loyola team in Michigan. This was a 
significant blow to segregationist sentiment in Mississippi. Jack was 
right there with the team as it defied its own Governor to help move 
our State forward.
  Through his microphone, Jack Cristil brought Mississippians some 
great moments in college athletics history. As the play-by-play man for 
Mississippi State, he also certainly endured some tough losses. Since 
Jack first broadcast a game for the Bulldogs in 1953, his tenure has 
spanned 11 head football coaches, 9 head basketball coaches, 11 
university presidents, 13 Governors of Mississippi, and 11 Presidents 
of the

[[Page 3308]]

United States. He has truly been an enduring figure in our State, 
throughout the South, and throughout college athletics.
  In Mississippi, fans of all teams appreciate the talent and longevity 
of Jack Cristil. I think it fitting to close by quoting Jack Cristil in 
saying, ``You can wrap this one in maroon and white.''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
an article titled, ``It's a wrap for Mr. Maroon and White'' from The 
Clarion Ledger.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         [From the Clarion-Ledger--Jackson, MS, Feb. 25, 2011]

                  It's a Wrap for Mr. Maroon and White

                          (By Rick Cleveland)

       Doesn't matter which university you pulled for, you 
     listened to Cristil.
       You listened because he put you there, in the stadium.
       We knew Jack Cristil couldn't go on forever. Here lately, 
     he has sounded tired, worn out--certainly not himself. So 
     maybe Wednesday's news that Cristil is stepping down after 58 
     years as the voice of Mississippi State University's football 
     team and 54 years calling basketball wasn't totally 
     unexpected.
       Still, we don't have to like it.
       Because of health reasons, Cristil, 85, will broadcast his 
     last MSU sports event when the Bulldog basketball team plays 
     the University of Tennessee today in Knoxville. The game is 
     scheduled to start at 5 p.m., with the radio broadcast 
     beginning 30 minutes before. For many of us, it will be like 
     listening to Sinatra sing his last song.
       For three generations of Mississippians, our introduction 
     to the Deep South's regional pastime of college football 
     often has been Cristil's gravelly, baritone voice telling us 
     about a 6-tall, 180-pound halfback from Amory or Ackerman or 
     Moss Point. Doesn't matter which university you pulled for, 
     you listened to Cristil. You listened because he put you 
     there, in the stadium. He described the weather and the 
     setting. Told you which team was going which way. He gave you 
     the uniform colors and the context of whatever game he was 
     describing.
       His voice was so distinct, you could almost taste the 
     cigarettes he was smoking.
       He gave you down, distance, score and how much time was 
     remaining. He did it regularly.
       You knew he was for the Mississippi State Bulldogs, but 
     often you couldn't tell it from his account of the game. He 
     didn't cheer. (Although I can't count the times, I saw him 
     slam down his headset, put his hand over the microphone and 
     yell at a basketball official who had just screwed up a 
     call.)
       His wit was as dry as the Sahara. Who can forget his 
     legendary call on the Sonic Drive of the game after one 
     particularly galling State defeat? The Bulldogs didn't have a 
     significant drive, so Jack just said it would be his drive 
     back home to Tupelo. I was listening on the way home from 
     another game that day. I laughed so hard I almost ran my car 
     off the road.


                              Another era

       It's hard to put into perspective how long Cristil has been 
     doing what he did so well. He was hired in August 1952 by 
     Dudy Noble, the man many consider the father of Mississippi 
     State athletics. Joe Fortunato, one of the Chicago Bears' 
     famed Monsters of the Midway from the 1950s, played in the 
     first State game Cristil ever broadcast. Fortunato, now 70 
     and living here in Natchez, will pretty much tell you what 
     any other State fan will.
       ``It's hard to believe he has been doing it for that long, 
     that well,'' Fortunato said Thursday.
       Eight years ago, on the occasion of Cristil's 50th 
     anniversary of describing State football games, I visited him 
     for most of a thoroughly entertaining day and evening at his 
     home and office in Tupelo. Oh, the stories he told. . . .
       Of growing up in Memphis, the son of Jewish immigrants from 
     Russia and Latvia. His parents bought a huge radio to listen 
     to classical music, but that's when Cristil discovered the 
     games at the age of 6. ``Here I was in Memphis, and I was 
     absolutely enthralled with the idea that a man could be 
     sitting in some stadium in New York or Chicago or Boston, 
     telling me about a game. It was like magic.''
       Cristil said he knew right then what he was going to do 
     with his life.
       Of filling up his 1948 Plymouth in Clarksdale in August 
     1952 to drive from Clarksdale to Starkville to be interviewed 
     by Noble.
       ``I had envisioned a young, energetic, business-type person 
     in a trim suit and a neat hair-do,'' Cristil said. ``But Dudy 
     Noble was a big man, over 6 feet tall and quite hefty. He was 
     attired in an old cotton, flannel shirt and baggy britches. 
     He had an unruly shock of gray hair that stuck out.''
       Noble, Cristil said, gave him the job and then told him, 
     ``You tell that radio audience what the score is and who's 
     got the ball and how much time is left and you cut out the 
     bull.''
       Said Cristil: ``. . . turns out the best advice I ever 
     got.''
       Of the 1963 Liberty Bowl in Philadelphia on a day when it 
     was, as Cristil put it, ``colder than a pawnbroker's heart.''
       Sen. John C. Stennis, another beloved State man, sat in the 
     unheated press box alongside Cristil, both of them bundled in 
     coats and blankets. ``It was so cold, our coffee would freeze 
     before we drank it,'' Cristil said.
       But Cristil wrapped up a 16-12 State victory over North 
     Carolina in maroon and white.
       At age 11, I listened with my daddy in the kitchen of our 
     house.
       Of a State-Alabama football game when Bob Hope was on tour 
     and doing a show that night in Tuscaloosa, unbeknownst to 
     Cristil. Bear Bryant's boys, as usual, were beating up on 
     State when somebody came by the visitors' radio booth and 
     whispered to Cristil, ``Hope is available at halftime if you 
     want him.''
       Responded Cristil, ``Fellow, I need some hope right now.''
       Thing is, even during all those many bleak years when 
     Mississippi State fans had little if any hope, they had Jack 
     Cristil. If it sounds trite, then so be it: It will never be 
     quite the same without him.

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