Wyche Off To Flying Start As Nbc Football Analyst

Working next to Marv Albert at an NFL game was such an uplifting experience for Sam Wyche he’d like to return the favor. He wants Albert next to him, in his airplane’s co-pilot seat.

Wyche, the former Cincinnati and Tampa Bay coach, has been flying for 26 years and piloted himself from his home in Tampa to Jacksonville for Game One Sunday of his first season as an NBC analyst.

“It’s hard for me to get guys into an airplane because they know me from such a different perspective,” Wyche said. “But I’ll get Marv in the airplane if I have to hogtie him. It’s just a matter of time.”

For you flying enthusiasts, Wyche owns a Piper Saratoga, which he describes as a six-seat, single-engine, retractable gear airplane.

“I used to offer players rides, but they generally looked at me with a little suspicion,” he said. “I love to fly. Anybody who wants to go, I’m looking for excuses.

“This is the second airplane I’ve owned.”

I didn’t ask what happened to the first.

Sunday, Wyche was in more danger in the booth than he did in the cockpit that day.

“I think I survived - that’s pretty close to what it was,” Wyche said. “But that doesn’t mean I survived unscathed. I still feel a little like a missionary to the broadcast industry, bringing the perspective of a coach along with all the biases and resentments.”

Wyche said he watched the tape of his game Sunday night after returning home and wasn’t as bad as he’d feared.

“Clearly, there were some rookie mistakes, but I don’t think I’ll make the same ones again,” he said, sounding like a coach now.

The real coach in this game, though, was Albert, a pro and a stickler whose wry sense of humor occasionally drives cohorts nuts.

“Oh, he gave it to me pretty good a couple of times,” Wyche said. “The initiation was complete, no question about that. He was almost like an orchestra leader in the booth at times, telling me to keep my energy up and leading me.

“A couple of times, he was leading the orchestra, only I was through talking, and then I wondered, ‘How do I get out of this?’ I need some of those exit phrases.”

Wyche takes his new vocation seriously.

“I’ve missed coaching, and I’m hoping TV fills that void and it becomes my new love,” he said. “But I am taking it very seriously, and I think that’s why I’m so critical. … I don’t want this to be a long learning curve.”

Out takes

Sean McDonough is better known for announcing baseball than tennis, and there’s a good reason. Until he picked up the mike for CBS at the U.S. Open last weekend, he’d never done it before.

“You know, I drove past Shea Stadium today before I got here, and I got this little twitch,” said McDonough, who is taking time off as voice of the Boston Red Sox.

He sat in the CBS box on Stadium Court at the National Tennis Center one day last week, just trying to acclimate himself.

“I’m like a little kid,” he said. “I was walking around under the stands for hours until I found my way out and realized, ‘Hey, you guys really do have a stadium here!’ There’s an awful lot of seats here to be surrounding a field that’s so small.”

The new football guy at Fox is Ronnie Lott, the former defensive back, who joined the “Fox NFL Sunday” pregame show. Looks like he’s found a home already.

Right out of the box, he declared the defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys a team with an attitude problem.

“They’re not even sure if they really want to play Monday night. I’m really curious about this team,” Lott said. “Do they want to be champs or chumps?”