Basketball
UK vs Illinois basketball game December 22nd 1956
This art was very unexpected. As unexpected as it was for me to find the University of Kentucky archive having digested historical audio information into new formats, making available via their finding aid. Upon discovering the sports broadcasting transmissions by Claude H. Sullivan, well I immediately set about drawing. His all commanding description of the UK vs Illinois basketball game December 22nd 1956 made me feel like I was witnessing a live game.
The audience in 1956 would have been receiving the live event via the radio, listening to the audio without any visual images – this has been replicated for me only via a computer. Claude has to command an entire event, informing the audience of what is happening whilst also transmitting the authentic sounds, vibrancy / drama of the on-going game.
How can an audience witness a basketball game they can’t see, witness a game from outside the sporting arena? How can they feel they are a witness? Claude just does not break in his commentary, continually describing the flow of the game within the court. Repeating uses of terms pivot, good, not good, quickly allows the audience to know what is happening and to who. Where the action is.
The speed of delivery made accurate written transcription impossible, however I attempted to transcribe as much as possible. The layers and lines of text started to create the poetic composition. There were many player names mentioned including Gerry Calvert, I sourced an image of the game (specifically Calvert) via the archival resources available online and started to create an imagined composition.
The commentary started to shape the overall composition. I was picturing a large hand and basketball being pounded into the net. Near the end of the game Claude describes the nets as having heavy sag from taking a beating through-out the night. What this means I don’t know, but it’s about the only sentence I can actually remember from the game. The piece is broken into four quarters, with specific words emphasized over others. It’s a historical collage that is authentic to experiencing preserved audio information.
A bit more about Claude H. Sullivan, as described in the University Kentucky archive catalogue:
Sportscaster Claude H. Sullivan (December 29, 1924 - December 9, 1967) was born in Winchester and died in Rochester, Minnesota. He attended the University of Louisville and Ohio State University. He began his broadcast career on the air at WMCA in Ashland in 1942. From 1944 to 1946, he was with WAVE in Louisville, and he began broadcasting University of Kentucky football games in 1945. From 1951 until 1962 Sullivan was associated with WVLK in Lexington broadcasting UK football and basketball games. Sullivan also worked for WKLX from 1947-1951 and also had brief jobs at WNOX in Knoxville, TN, in Mt. Vernon, ILL, and WZIP in Covington, KY in 1948. In 1951, he organized the Standard Oil Sports Network, which included more than twenty stations carrying football and basketball broadcasts originating in thirty- seven states. Named "Kentucky's Outstanding Broadcaster" by the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters from 1959 to 1966, Sullivan received the "Golden Mike" award from the Kentucky Broadcaster's Award in 1967. He was buried in the Winchester Cemetery.