In my opinion, Tom Brookshier and Pat Summerall were the defining NFL announcers of a generation. In an era know for "soft coverage" (Phyllis George, anyone?), Brookshier was never afraid to say what was on his mind. The man will be missed.
Tom Brookshier, Eagles Star and Broadcaster, Dies at 78
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Tom Brookshier, a star defensive back who helped lead the Philadelphia Eagles to the 1960 National Football League championship and later teamed with Pat Summerall as CBS’s No. 1 professional football broadcasting duo, died Friday at a hospital in the Philadelphia suburb of Wynnewood, Pa. Brookshier, who lived in West Conshohocken, Pa., was 78.
The cause was cancer, said his wife, Barbara.
When Brookshier, a native of Roswell, N.M., joined the Eagles in 1953 out of the University of Colorado, he was a 10th-round draft pick. Figuring he was likely to be cut, he decided to make an impression on the Eagles’ coach, Joe Trimble, at training camp in Hershey, Pa. As he once related it on the Eagles’ Web site: “Our No. 1 draft choice came downfield on a pass pattern, and I knocked him out. Our coach jumped and yelled, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to get cut!’ But he ran out and said, ‘I like that!’ ”
Brookshier intercepted eight passes that season and went on to become a key figure in the Eagles’ defense. His former teammate Chuck Bednarik, a Hall of Fame linebacker, said the 6-foot, 196-pound Brookshier “might have been the toughest defensive back of our era; he was a hitter.”
Brookshier was selected as an All-Pro and member of the Pro Bowl team in 1959 and in 1960, when the Eagles defeated the Green Bay Packers for the N.F.L. championship. Playing seven seasons for the Eagles, he intercepted 20 passes. The team retired his No. 40.
Brookshier’s playing career, interrupted by two years’ Air Force service, ended after he broke his leg in a game against the Chicago Bears in 1961. He began his broadcasting career with WCAU in Philadelphia, then joined with Summerall on CBS during the 1970s. They worked three Super Bowls together.
“With Brookie, it was more of a conversation, like two guys in a saloon,” Summerall once told The New York Times.
Summerall began working with John Madden during the 1981 season, but Brookshier continued to broadcast for CBS into the mid-1980s.
In December 1983, Brookshier created a stir during a telecast. After a commercial for a coming CBS telecast of a basketball game involving the University of Louisville, Brookshier said that the team’s players had “a collective I.Q. of about 40.” The network sent an apology to the university and ordered Brookshier off the air for the last weekend of the N.F.L. season. Brookshier called his remark “stupid” but criticized CBS for disciplining him. He later visited the Louisville campus to make amends.
After his years with CBS, Brookshier helped create a sports-radio niche in Philadelphia while working at WIP.
In addition to his wife, Brookshier is survived by his daughters Betsy and Linda; a son, Thomas Jr., and a granddaughter.
Surveying pro football broadcasters in The Times before the 1976 Super Bowl, the writer Wilfrid Sheed praised Brookshier and Summerall for their interaction.
As Sheed put it: “This pair has actually been known to approach the foothills of adult conversation. Brookshier is a natural wag who doesn’t have to strain, and Summerall sounds like a real friend and not a hasty arrangement.”
Tom Brookshier, 78, Eagles Star and Broadcaster, Dies - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com
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