Jim McKay, whose commanding presence, eloquence and versatility as a broadcaster made him the face and voice of sporting events around the globe for American audiences, died Saturday. He was 86.
McKay died of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md., according to his son, Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports.
It was McKay with three unforgettable words — “They’re all gone” — who relayed the news that 11 Israeli athletes had been murdered by terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. And it was McKay who was the host of “Wide World of Sports,” the breakthrough show that exposed audiences to athletes both familiar and obscure in events both universally celebrated and largely unknown from locations around the planet before technology made such telecasts commonplace.
McKay, who covered 12 Olympics, won 13 Emmy Awards, including the first for a sportscaster. But none were more meaningful to him than the Emmys for both sports and news along with a George Polk Award for his coverage in Munich.
“That’s the most memorable single moment of my career,” McKay said later.
He was born James Kenneth McManus on Sept. 24, 1921, in Philadelphia. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola College in Baltimore in 1943.
After serving in the Navy in World War II, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant, Mc-Kay began his career in the media as a police and general assignment reporter and aviation editor at The Baltimore Evening Sun. Within a year, he moved to TV, where he mixed in roles as a variety show host and weatherman with news and sports before specializing in sports.
In 1950, he changed his professional name to Jim McKay.
After more than a decade at CBS, it was on to ABC, where he would make his significant mark in broadcasting.
