Box scores – a feature on a page of the sports section of a newspaper. They contain basically two things: names and numbers. It’s all there in black and white, waiting to ignite the brain’s digit counters in all its box-type glory.
If you know anything about fantasy sports, you know it is a “pretend” game scenario in which the “owner” and his team gets points based on statistics. That is, box scores.
Sports contests for the longest time were just reported on and written about in terms of numbers and what had literally transpired on the court, field, diamond, or course. Similarly, sports broadcasted on the radio or television was practiced mostly in the same way.
With the beginning of this 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, I am reminded of how and when the concept of “the human interest story” entered our living rooms via the television in the 1970s. I am familiar with this and it is quite interesting.
An extremely successful major television network sports executive (Roone Arledge of ABC Sports), and later his protege (Dick Ebersol, a one-time “go-fer” for ABC in the Summer Olympics games and later President of NBC Sports), thought that something was sorely missing from the Olympics broadcasts in the 1970s. Every televised broadcast of a contest was centered around plays, statistics, rankings, medals, and athletic moments.
What was missing? Well, an in-depth, critical, thought-provoking, and sometimes tear-jerking story of an athlete and what he or she had gone or was going through, particularly in the quest to train for a contest and, in this case, win a coveted medal against the world’s best athletes.
“It adds a whole new dimension to an upcoming contest, doesn’t it?”, they must have thought.
Surprisingly, sporting events at the onset of network-televised games and events were lacking in this concept. Perhaps in the print medium of the day as well.
But to have another commentator on a broadcast, one who could add to the other commentator’s play-by-play calls, would make a network broadcast of said sporting event that much more interesting and dynamic in a big way.
For it was not just about how fast a skater went around the ring, or about a game-winning goal in a hockey medal round, or what speed a giant slalom skier hit to edge out a competitor at the finish line. Nor was it just about the age-old adage of The Olympics: Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.
It was also, lest we forget, about the man or woman in the arena who “strives valiantly.” What obstacle has that athlete overcome to get to The Games? What family glories or grievances has an athlete weathered in his sporting career? What injuries were overcome? How has that athlete coped with the success or failure (or both) in the never-ending chase to glory?
The human interest story is presented in any number of ways. In a football, basketball, baseball or other athletic contest which has spurts of intervening pause in the action, the “color” commentator (or he who adds to his parters black and white call of the game’s action) will throughout the game add snippets and stories of interest about an athlete that pique a viewer’s interest. For it is not all about statistics. In these types of contests and the Olympics, there will oft-times be a story about an athlete, coach or other figure who has a story that needs to be, and is, told.
May you watch televised sporting events in a different manner from now on, if you have not before. Perhaps you will notice in a different way what you have heard beforehand as so much jibber-jabber. Become interested in an athlete’s story, and your viewing experience will be immensely enriched.