By Leonard Shapiro
Special to washingtonpost.com
Sunday, June 8, 2008 2:33 PM

"They're all gone."

More than 35 years later, simply typing those words evokes memories of hooded terrorists and an unspeakable massacre.

They were uttered by the great Jim McKay on worldwide television during the 1972 Summer Olympics, after 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were kidnapped in the Olympic Village and slaughtered during a failed rescue attempt at the Munich Airport.

McKay, who died Saturday at his home in Monkton, Md., at the age of 86, always described the dark hours of Sept. 5, 1972, as the worst day of his life, even though his work that day in the ABC studio has always been characterized as the finest performance of a man who was arguably the greatest television sports broadcaster of his generation.

"I had to control myself, I was full of emotion," McKay once said of his 16-hour coverage of the hostage crisis. "But when you are a professional, it's important to communicate what it is like, to capture the moment."

A day later, McKay received a telegram from CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite that read, "Dear Jim, today you honored yourself, your network and your industry."

Peter Jennings, the late ABC news anchor who was working as a reporter during the '72 Games, once told the Baltimore Sun, "I've often said to folks on that day in Munich, I don't think anybody better could have been in the chair. I've never been able to imagine anybody else doing it with as much grace and intelligence and precision."

From the day the 26-year-old police reporter was plucked out of the Baltimore Evening Sun newsroom in 1947 and assigned to utter the first words ever heard on a Baltimore station in a fledging new medium called television, McKay was a professional's professional.

His storied career, most of it with ABC, included coverage of 12 Olympic competitions -- from his first, for CBS, at the 1960 Rome Games, to his last, working for NBC at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

He also spent more than 37 years as the original and continuing host of the ABC anthology series, "Wide World of Sports." McKay took the assignment in 1961 from pioneering sports producer Roone Arledge with a promise of just 20 episodes as a summer replacement series. The anthology eventually took him "spanning the globe" to every state in the union and 40 countries to cover more than a hundred different sports. ABC once estimated McKay had logged close to five million miles in the air for "Wide World."

But far more significant was the way McKay covered sports that ranged from the ridiculous -- barrel racing, demolition derby and Acapulco cliff divers -- to the sublime at during so many Olympiads, British Opens and Triple Crown horse races. There was dignity, humanity, often unbridled enthusiasm and, perhaps best of all, a story-telling approach he employed virtually every time he sat or stood in front of a camera.

Occasionally, he even got a bit emotional, particularly when American athletes stood on Olympic victory podiums at the very pinnacle of their respective sports.

"If I said I was an objective reporter, I'd be lying through my teeth," he said during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. "I think when an American wins, you're excited. And why not?"

Still, unlike so many of the current generation of shamelessly self-promoting, look-at-me broadcasters, McKay worked with a far more humble, self-effacing approach that further endeared him to decades of viewers, some of whom used him as their role model while pursuing broadcasting careers of their own.

In his new book, "Always By My Side," CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz recalled being introduced to McKay by a college golf teammate who was working as teaching pro at McKay's club in Connecticut. Nantz, then working as a sports anchor in Houston and only a few years out of college, was invited by McKay to come north for a round of golf.

"After spending the day basking in Jim McKay's aura and quizzing him about the profession, my career aspirations suddenly seemed attainable," Nantz wrote. "That magical morning had exceeded anything that I could have reasonably hoped for. Here was my childhood idol -- the person I most wanted to emulate -- encouraging me to continue pursuing my dream and even graciously offering to help in any way he could. ¿ Immediately, I wrote McKay a thank-you note. ¿ Then, just about a week later, I received a package in the mail. Jim McKay had sent me a note saying how much he had enjoyed spending time with me."

The package also included a book of essays written by famous British golf writer and broadcaster, Henry Longhurst, with an inscription on the flyleaf from McKay that read, "To Jim Nantz, Remembering our day on the windy links of Fairfield." Nantz still considers it among his most treasured possessions.

Those of us who grew up watching McKay from around the world treasured all that quality time with him, as well. In my house, "Wide World" was must-see TV almost from the day it went on the air with the 1961 Penn Relays from Philadelphia. McKay actually helped write the show's famous "thrill of victory, agony of defeat" introduction.

Over the years, I also had the great pleasure of meeting McKay and interviewing him several times for this column. He could not have been more accommodating, more gracious or more forthcoming on every subject. That included the time I had to pose tough questions about the wisdom of him broadcasting the Preakness for ABC when he himself was so deeply involved in the racing business (he owned and bred thoroughbreds and was the originator of the Maryland Million series).

He told me he could understand the concern, but that he would never allow his love of the sport or his private interests to compromise anything that had to be said on the air, good or bad. We eventually agreed to disagree on the conflict-of-interest issue, and over the years, he always continued to accept my calls, more than willing to comment on the topic of that day.

McKay's son, Sean McManus, now president of CBS News and Sports, said in a statement that "because of the profession I'm in, not a day goes by when someone doesn't stop me and say 'we think of him all the time' and 'we admire him.' That tells you a lot about the kind of man he was."

That tells you everything you need to know about Jim McKay.

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at len.shapiro@washingtonpost.com