So Long Jim McKay

On Saturday legendary sportscaster Jim McKay passed away. Growing up I had a love hate relationship with McKay. Loved him because I knew skiing would be on shortly, but before I could catch a glimpse of the Hannekahm start house I had to watch the agony of defeat- which was painful as an aspiring ski jumper.

Each weekend McKay brought ski racing and other sports not regularly seen on network TV into living rooms across the country. Whether it was cliff diving or slalom racing McKay always had great insight and brought great perspective to sport.

These days, about the only time we see alpine racing on television is during the Olympics, and McKay covered many of these as well. As the games made their way into the latter half of the fortnight, the bags under McKay's eyes got deeper than the ruts in an Olympic slalom course. But as tired as he may have looked he always reported in a calm in gentle manner.

Thanks Jim for bringing racing into our homes for so many years.