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Rich Glickstein/rglickstein@thestate.com/
Renowned sportscaster Bob Fulton, 88, was in a rehabilitation center recently after a fall.
GoGamecocks.com
Morris: 'Voice of the Gamecocks' booms again
Bob Fulton calls football games off TV for rehab-center roommate
Posted on 09.15.09
When Bob Fulton said goodbye to broadcasting South Carolina athletics with the final out of a baseball game in 1995, he vowed never again to sit behind the microphone. Fulton fibbed.
The longtime, legendary “Voice of the Gamecocks” came out of retirement recently, calling football games off TV for his nearly blind roommate at a rehabilitation facility near Lexington.
“I’m quite sure no one has ever been crazy enough to do this,” Fulton said. “It was wonderful. I was broadcasting again. I think I did a pretty good job, but that doesn’t mean I could do any live broadcasting.”
The 88-year-old Fulton found himself in a rehab center after a recent fall. He is doing well and returned to his Lake Murray home this week. If he is to call any more games, he likely will have only an audience of one — himself.
Upon arriving at the center about three weeks ago, Fulton found a friend in his roommate, 67-year-old Leonard Cooper, who has about 10 percent of his eyesight.
The two quickly found they shared a love of sports. Cooper, a Pittsburgh native, was reared in south Florida and graduated from the University of Florida in 1964. He proudly boasts of being a classmate of Steve Spurrier, who won the Heisman Trophy at Florida in 1966.
So when Spurrier became coach at USC, he immediately had a supporter in Cooper, who had moved to Columbia. Cooper recalls listening to Fulton’s calls of USC games over the years.
Fulton, also a Pennsylvania native, provided play-by-play coverage of USC athletics — mostly football, basketball and baseball, but even some boxing — for 43 years. While Fulton most enjoyed calling basketball, he probably was most known for his football work.
Longtime USC fans remember his signature calls, such as “Touchdown, Carolina, touchdown Gamecocks!” and “There he goes, big George,” in reference to Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers when he carried the football.
So Fulton did not miss a beat in USC’s season-opening victory against N.C. State, barking out a “Touchdown Carolina, touchdown Gamecocks!” to his roommate when USC’s Brian Maddox found the end zone on a 1-yard run in the first quarter.
Fulton said he added excitement to the “broadcast” when USC scored, and proper inflection to make the game more exciting for Cooper.
Early in his broadcasting career, Fulton learned to re-create minor-league baseball games. Radio stations in the 1950s and ’60s could not afford to send their play-by-play announcers on the road, so they sat at home in a studio. They received information about the game via Western Union telegraphs and created the game on the radio as if they were at the ballpark.
As Fulton sat the last couple of weeks in his room at the rehab center, he thought back to those days of re-created broadcasts. Except, this time, the information about the football games he watched was provided via graphics on TV. He did not need rosters or spotter boards — like he used in live broadcasts — because he could read the names of players on the closed captions across the bottom of the screen.
“It was very easy. For anyone who ever re-created games, it comes back very easily.”
As was the case in the recent USC game against N.C. State, it did not take long for Fulton to connect names with player jersey numbers. He knew many of the USC players, such as quarterback Stephen Garcia and tight end Wesyle Saunders. Midway through the first quarter, he was familiar with N.C. State quarterback Russell Wilson.
“Carolina has the ball at the N.C. State 11-yard line,” Fulton informed his roommate. “It will be third down and one yard to go. Two receivers wide to the left and another wide to the right. Garcia is operating out of the shotgun. He looks over the defense, fades back, fires to his right and throws into the end zone ... incomplete, intended for Saunders.”
After a couple of quarters of the season-opener, Fulton was again comfortable in his element, and, of course, the play-by-play account featured Fulton’s still melodious, baritone voice reverberating through the room.
In fact, Fulton’s voice carried into the hallway outside. As the season reached its second week, crowds of nurses, attendants, visitors and other patients began to gather outside Fulton’s room. Some stood and eavesdropped; others sat in wheelchairs, taking it all in.
They heard Fulton call the Florida State-Miami game on a Monday night and Clemson’s game Thursday at Georgia Tech. Fulton was familiar enough with the surroundings at Georgia Tech’s Grant Field, where he broadcast games for two years in the mid-’60s, to give Cooper descriptions of the stadium and the surrounding Atlanta skyline.
“It made me feel young again. It really did,” Fulton said. “It’s the first play-by-play I’ve done in Lord knows how long.”
It probably will be the last, unless another roommate who could use some expert play-by-play of a college football game comes along.
Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM.
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