What caused the death of Jim McKay, a veteran sportscaster?
Media reports said McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md. He was the host of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” for more than four decades and covered 12 Olympics. He said the single most memorable moment of his career was during the tragic Summer Games in Munich, when McKay told Americans that the raid to rescue Israeli athletes kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists had failed. He won both a news and sports Emmy Award for his coverage of the Munich Olympics in addition to the prestigious George Polk award. McKay was a World War II Navy veteran and the first on-air television broadcaster seen in Baltimore. “He had a remarkable career and a remarkable life,” the Associated Press quoted Sean McManus, McKay’s son and the president of CBS News and Sports, as saying. “Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t come up to me and say how much they admired my father.” McKay was the first sportscaster to win an Emmy Award. He won 12, the last in 1988. ABC calculated that McKay
NEW YORK — Jim McKay, the venerable and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 86. McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md., said son Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes. He was host of the influential “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” for more than 40 years, starting in 1961. The weekend series introduced viewers to all manner of strange, compelling and far-flung sports events. The show provided an international reach long before exotic backdrops became a staple of sports television. McKay provided the famous voice-over that accompanied the opening, in which viewers were reminded of the show’s mission (“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports”) and what lay ahead (“the thrill of victory and the
