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Claude Sullivan

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morgousky

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Who remembers him, and how good was he? I know some of you are Reds fans too - was he a legend that simply died too soon?

I bought some of his memorabilia from his personal collection. Seemed like a good buy. Worth the premium?
 
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morgousky

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Smashcat said:
What’s the best piece out of his own collection that you have?
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John Henry

John Henry

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Aug 18, 2007
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He was great and I listened to him over Cawood. A lot of us did. As UK fans we were blessed to have great announcers. When I attended UK every local station had their own broadcaster. WVLK (Claude Sullivan),WLAP (Jack Lori) and WBLG (Earl Bordman) were all Lexington stations and all three broadcast the games with their own announcers. This was before syndication of the UK Network.

Earl Bordman was another great announcer. He actually did the after game Adolph Rupp interviews for several years. He was really good and if you ever have a chance to listen to these I think you would enjoy. Jack Lori was the funny one of the group. It may be because he was a Yankee from up North and his accent was so strange you would burst out laughing listening to him. Lori went on to become the Notre Dame announcers and is in a local Hall of Fame up there.

Check out the Lexington UK announcers in this photo and news article.

http://www.kentucky.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mark-story/article44509845.html
 
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John Henry

John Henry

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Morgousky, I want to thank you for starting this thread. Too many of our younger fans do not understand the true history of UK basketball and what made it great. The radio announcers were a big part of that. I had forgotten Claude Sullivan died at such a young age, 42. There is no doubt if he had lived he would be mentioned today as one of the all time greats. He would be there with Vince Scully. He was a great baseball announcer and he would have moved on to that venue to become a star of stars.

As I said, I listened to Claude Sullivan and the reason I liked him better than Cawood was because he was a great story teller and would mix that with his broadcast. Cawood was pretty much a straight play by play man but he was also a 10 out of 10. We were blessed to have both.
 
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uky8unc5

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May 22, 2002
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Sawnee Cat said:
Morgousky, I want to thank you for starting this thread. Too many of our younger fans do not understand the true history of UK basketball and what made it great. The radio announcers were a big part of that. I had forgotten Claude Sullivan died at such a young age, 42. There is no doubt if he had lived he would be mentioned today as one of the all time greats. He would be there with Vince Scully. He was a great baseball announcer and he would have moved on to that venue to become a star of stars.

As I said, I listened to Claude Sullivan and the reason I liked him better than Cawood was because he was a great story teller and would mix that with his broadcast. Cawood was pretty much a straight play by play man but he was also a 10 out of 10. We were blessed to have both.
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Sawnee, just curious: are you including Claude's baseball broadcasts in your comparison?
Baseball allows for stories and side conversations. (Like you...I was a Reds addict too.)
But with Cawood, I could see the action with clarity through his eyes.
 
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John Henry

John Henry

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uky8unc5 said:
Sawnee, just curious: are you including Claude's baseball broadcasts in your comparison?
Baseball allows for stories and side conversations. (Like you...I was a Reds addict too.)
But with Cawood, I could see the action with clarity through his eyes.
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Yes, the total package. I listened to Cawood over WHAS when I grew up in Florida and I remember just laying on the floor, closing my eyes and Cawood would paint a picture. When I got to UK I listened to the local Lexington stations and started listening to Claude on WVLK and after the game switched to WBLG to listen to Adolph Rupp and Earl Bordman post game show.

But the style of Claude Sullivan was probably best for baseball because he mixed in the stories and could cover more dead air time. I just hate it that he died at age 42.
 
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uky8unc5

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May 22, 2002
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Sawnee Cat said:
Yes, the total package. I listened to Cawood over WHAS when I grew up in Florida and I remember just laying on the floor, closing my eyes and Cawood would paint a picture. When I got to UK I listened to the local Lexington stations and started listening to Claude on WVLK and after the game switched to WBLG to listen to Adolph Rupp and Earl Bordman post game show.

But the style of Claude Sullivan was probably best for baseball because he mixed in the stories and could cover more dead air time. I just hate it that he died at age 42.
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I grieved when Claude died too.

You and I can't explain to the young guns on this board what it was like living in an era with very few Televised games. We loved basketball (and baseball). So we watched the game in our mind.

Even as a 20-something I listened to games while I shot hoops on our backyard poorly lit court.
I kept a score sheet listening to baseball games. Different time. Same game. Life is good.
 
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On-On-UK_rivals45415

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Feb 5, 2007
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Graham51 said:
If Cawood was a 10, Sullivan was a 9.99.. UK fans have been very lucky over the years with some outstanding pbp men but that list does not include Ralph Hacker.
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I must agree with the Ralph Hacker statement.
He was ok as Cawood's side-kick. Back then, the color guy contributed very little. But when he took over the play by play, GEEZZZ. I can't give any specific examples, but I remember getting very frustrated listening to his call. I remember thinking, "What just happened???" Cawood painted a picture and you could practically see the action.

One other thing. Sam Bowie was Ralph's color analyst. I love Sam. He's one of my all time favorite Cats, but he was a much better player than radio guy...
 
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docholiday51

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Oct 19, 2001
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uky8unc5 said:
I grieved when Claude died too.

You and I can't explain to the young guns on this board what it was like living in an era with very few Televised games. We loved basketball (and baseball). So we watched the game in our mind.

Even as a 20-something I listened to games while I shot hoops on our backyard poorly lit court.
I kept a score sheet listening to baseball games. Different time. Same game. Life is good.
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Wonder how many of us did that.I kept a notebook of individual scoring totals for each game It was so cool when the bench warmers got in and actually scored so you could write their names down.Remember when Brad Bounds scored 13 points in about 2 minutes? he got in the next game early but played poorly and was never heard from to any extent again.

As you said it is difficult to get across to the young fans how things were in those days and what UK basketball meant to us.It was a connection to a world that we could only imagine and Cawood made it easy to imagine,all we had to do was close our eyes and listen.
 
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docholiday51

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Smashcat said:
Did Rupp do a postgame Q and A with each of the three?
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I think he only did one,but I lived back in the hills so far I could only get one or sometime 2 stations.Another thing people don't realize is that Coach Rupp's wit was much like Cal's except he didn't have the canned statements so much he just made stuff up as he went along.

Adding a thought here,when UK recruited Pat Riley and he got on campus the story goes that Rupp asked the players something about their goals or course of study.Riley responded that he might like to go to law school and to be a lawyer,to which Rupp responded son,I brought you here to play basketball,if you want to be a lawyer go somewhere else.

The Cal version "Kentucky is not for everybody" or as he told Tyler Ulis "if you plan to be here 4 years don't come."
 
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