Looking Back: Chuck Shuffett
Chuck
Shuffett took over the play-by-play duties for Racer athletics after he
purchased WNBS in 1957.
Shuffett had gotten his start at a station in Glasgow, Ky.
"I auditioned for a job as an announcer and when they hired me they told me that
I would also be calling ballgames which was something I had never done," he
said. "A month or so later they told me I had a game on Friday night. Well, I
thought that was peculiar because most places don't start basketball in early
September.
"It turned out that I was supposed to do a football game. I had never even seen
a football game. So I called the first football game I ever saw and I went on to
do basketball too."
Rex Alexander was the head coach at MSU when Shuffett
took over as the Voice of the Racers. But Alexander was replaced by Cal Luther
in 1958.
"In my opinion Cal was the best coach we ever had," he declared. "He had less to
work with than modern coaches. And of course he got paid a lot less.
"He was extremely fiery on the sideline, at practice, and after games if we
lost. There were times I had to walk him down after games the way you would a
race horse and we became very good friends."
Anyone who does play-by-play will tell you the biggest downside of the job is
travel. But no matter how bad announcers have it now, it was far worse in
Shuffett's day.
In 1963 the Racers played defending national champion Loyola of Chicago in a
first round NCAA tournament game in Evanston, Ill. But they almost didn't make
it to the arena.
"We were going to go up there on a train but there was a flood and the train
couldn't get across the river at Wickliffe," Shuffett recalled. "We finally
managed to get some kind of transportation to Carbondale and we rode the train
from there.
"We jumped out ahead of Loyola 22-8 and a broadcaster from Mutual Radio the
following day said 'Murray State was beating Loyola handily until the referees
took charge.' And I agreed with that. Most people who ever heard me do a ball
game knew I thought I was a better official than I was a broadcaster."
The names of players from those days roll off of Shuffett's tongue with ease -
Skeeter Sullens, Scott Schlosser, Jim Jennings, Hector Blondette...
"I remember Hector very well," Shuffett said. "He was a great passer. He never
gave away what he was going to do with his eyes. We went to play Eastern
Kentucky and he stayed out beyond curfew so the morning of the game Cal told me
to take Hector to the bus station and buy him a ticket home. And he said not to
give him any money. I thought that would be the last we ever saw of Hector but
he played in the next game."
There were, of course, lighthearted moments along the way.
"We were down at Middle Tennessee one year and the guy who did play-by-play for
Middle sent an exotic dancer to grab me by the neck during the game," Shuffett
said smiling. "She was a lady of considerable physical endowment and it was kind
of embarrassing."
Shuffett stopped doing the games in 1975.
Current play by play announce Neal Bradley remembers
listening to Shuffett when he was a kid.
"I could barely get WNBS where I lived so I listened
to Chuck whenever I could," he said. "I thought he did a great job. He painted a
great picture and I became a Racer fan by listening to him. I never thought I'd
be doing something like that myself."