There was a time when broadcasting decisions had to travel through numerous channels at a network. There was a time when television transmission was done over phone lines. There was a time the Olympics were a just modest program offering.<\/p>\n
Then came Jack Weir, whose 40-year career at NBC changed all that.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom an operations point of view, Jack was a complete innovator,\u201d says Ken Aagaard, EVP, Operations and Production Services, CBS Sports. \u201cHe never got the credit that he should have for all of the work that he did. As an operations guy, he was very important in my career because he taught me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weir was a mentor to many behind the camera and in the trenches of some of sports television\u2019s most established broadcast entities.<\/p>\n
Weir graduated from Emerson College and served in the Army before beginning his career at NBC as a page in 1952. It didn\u2019t take long for him to emerge from the entry-level ranks and begin having a significant impact on the network\u2019s broadcast operations.<\/p>\n
In the mid 1950s, Weir and colleagues Don Kivell, and Frank Badami sold NBC technical management on the concept of a central department where instant on-air management decisions would be made. From that was born the BOC (Broadcast Operations Center), the go-to place for all operational decisions on breaking news, sports, and other programs.<\/p>\n
That was just the beginning for Weir and his innovative friends. In 1962, Weir and Kivell were key to one of broadcasting\u2019s most transformative technological developments: TV broadcasting\u2019s move from terrestrial transmission over telephone lines to satellite.<\/p>\n
Vince Vacca, a colleague and close friend of Weir\u2019s for more than a half century, recalls the first NBC satellite transmission vividly.<\/p>\n
\u201cJack, Don, and I were in the BOC when Don uttered the oft-quoted \u2018Cue the buffalo,\u2019 referring to a film segment in the program that showed a herd of buffalo stampeding across a western plain,\u201d Vacca says. \u201cThis inaugural program featured transmissions from Eurovision in Brussels. Each of the U.S. networks and the BBC initiated TV\u2019s entry into the satellite age.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weir and Kivell became the leaders in converting affiliated stations to a satellite-network distribution system and made NBC the first of the three major television networks to accomplish that feat.<\/p>\n
If you ask any of his colleagues, they will tell you Weir also executed the first live satellite uplink for network news out of Selma, AL, during the days of the civil-rights movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cJack was as great a broadcasting pioneer as he was a true gentleman of the industry,\u201d says Mike Meehan, SVP of operations, NBC Sports. \u201cHe was a visionary here at NBC and was the unquestioned leader in changing the network distribution model from terrestrial to satellite. He will be remembered for his integrity and dignity in a life well lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fitting that, in 2012, the year of television\u2019s most successful Olympic Games ever, Weir would be recognized by the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Even two years after his passing, his influence is still felt throughout the NBC compound.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, he was the father of Olympics, engineering- and operations-wise, at NBC,\u201d says Dave Mazza, SVP of engineering, NBC Olympics, who worked with Weir on Seoul in 1988 and Barcelona in 1992. \u201cHe was a consultant to us during the Atlanta Games [in 1996]. He had already retired, and we had a bunch of young kids on the job like me, so we were looking for an elder statesman to make sure we didn\u2019t get too far adrift.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his tenure, Weir helped build NBC\u2019s Olympics coverage into the juggernaut it is today. He was in charge of operations and developed his reputation of pushing the technological envelope while remaining cool under pressure and respectful of his employees.<\/p>\n
Says Mazza, \u201cHe was always even-tempered and could be counted on to have an even keel \u2014 especially when the situation required a little perspective and wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":786,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[26],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}