Sport Magazine's July 1976 Oly Edition - Jenner on the cover, tons of T&F

[bad hammy]

Recently a major SF Bay Area sports broadcasting personality, Ralph Barbieri, passed away after a long battle with Parkinsons. Known as The Razor (a nicknamed coined by longtime Bay Area media guy Herb Caen, based on the fact that for a radio guy Ralph definitely had a voice for newspaper work!), Ralph was a long-term sports radio guy who got started by writing articles for periodicals back in the 70s, one of his first being a cover story for Sport Magazine’s 1976 Olympic issue, as it was described in the obit:

Bruce Jenner's first national cover story was for Sport magazine and was penned by Ralph, who spent a week with him at his small apartment in San Jose, CA. At the time, Jenner was the decathlon World Record holder, but no one had ever really heard of him. After the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal where Jenner would win gold, everyone knew his name.

Of course T&FN had Jenner in its sights long before 1976 but for a major general-interest sports mag this was not a bad get for a barely published Barbieri. I bought the mag on Ebay and thanks to the Oly issue tie-in it's heavy on T&F with, besides the Jenner piece, articles about Houston McTear, Beamon, Francie Larrieu (!), Bayi vs. Walker, Thorpe, Didrickson, Owens, Zatopek, Mathias and Nurmi - not bad for a 1970s sports rag!

[gm]

I loved Sport Magazine. The glory days of SI, Sport, Sporting News... back when there were real sportswriters and real publications that covered sports.

[bambam1729]

And who can forget Inside Sports - although maybe we should.

Liked Glen, loved Sport Magazine back in the day

[dukehjsteve]

I was a typical age 9-14 kid who had all sorts of sports idols. Whenever Sport magazine had one of those beautiful full page color photos of one of my favorites, they were immediately cut out and taped on the wall of my bedroom.

[J Rorick]

When I was cleaning out my mother's (our family's) house in preparation for sale last year, I took down pictures from Sport Magazine that were pinned on the bulletin board in my bedroom. Bill Russell, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline, Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown. And oh, yeah, a cutout picture from an extra T&FN I bought in the early 1960s - the classic one with Brumel kicking the basketball rim.

[dukehjsteve]

I've told this story before, about a Brumel photo. A bit off color, but here goes.

There was a great full page SI photo of Brumel straddling over the bar, in about 1961. When I went away to Duke I cut that photo out, took it with me, and taped it to my dorm room desk. After telling many of my dorm mates of my idolization of Brumel, one of them, with a magic marker, greatly enhanced Brumel's masculinity in a strategic area. Dammit, I had loved that photo !

[gm]

When I was cleaning out my mother's (our family's) house in preparation for sale last year, I took down pictures from Sport Magazine that were pinned on the bulletin board in my bedroom. Bill Russell, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline, Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown. And oh, yeah, a cutout picture from an extra T&FN I bought in the early 1960s - the classic one with Brumel kicking the basketball rim.

That's a quality group right there!

[bad hammy]

Prior to high school competition my connection to T&F was pretty much through ABC Wide World of Sports (the agony of defeat!), Sports Illustrated, & Sport Magazine. T&FN started as a high school track coach thing . . .

[NotDutra5]

My parents bought me a subscription to SI in the early 70's for Christmas. By the time the first issue arrived it was a month or so. First issue shows up with Cheryl Tiegs in a pretty tiny bathing suit on the cover. My subscription almost ended with the first one.

[noone]

I remember that issue😊