Ted Tevan, icon, mentor, friend

I guess I'm really not too young for my heroes to die.

A few weeks ago, I made the remark on twitter when Clarence Clemons passed away but it really struck home today when I read the news, on twitter again, that Ted had passed away.

It's hard to overstate the impact Ted had on me in my adolescence.

For those of you who don't know, Ted Tevan was a Montreal institution in the 70s and 80s. His radio show, Sports Rap, was the first of its kind: an intelligent, wildly bombastic & charismatic host who knew more about sports than anyone and who delivered the most entertaining radio most anyone had ever heard at a time when the city was pretty much the centre of the sporting world.

Bob McCowan? Ha. A pale imitation of Ted.

How good was he? Ted's commercials were special. He made his sponsors famous in ways it's hard to imagine today. Montrealers grew to know Leo the Lion-hearted and the Fabulous Phil and the folks at Chenoy's as characters in their own right. To this day, I bet there are tens of thousands of Montrealers who remember the Dorion Suits commercial Ted made with Tony Perez.

Let's face it, this was a great time to be a sports radio host in Montreal: home of perennial Stanley Cup parades, the ascending Expos, the 1976 Olympics and world class events like the first Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran fight. And Ted was in the middle of it all.

If you dared call in and you were a straight arrow, Ted had all the time in the world for you but, Lord, if you weren't... if you were a mooch... Oh my! Out came the machine gun and with a fiery You're Gone!  The bullets would fly!

It was, without exaggeration, hilarious and entertaining radio.

Along with his trusty sidekick producer Dan McGarrity, Ted made regular listeners of people who had no interest in sports and bestowed on the music of Neil Diamond an almost mythic seductive quality, as he whispered his opening night after night.

However, Ted would never refer to his program as a mere sports show. That would never do, far too limiting a topic. He considered Sports Rap to be about "The Game of Life", as only this would grant him the appropriate canvas on which to paint his nightly opus.

One night, a man called in and said he held the phone in one hand and a revolver the other and that he was going to kill himself on the air. Ted kept him on the line long enough for the police to trace the call and listeners could hear them break in to the man's house. That was the kind of show he had, it truly was the Game of Life.

As a kid, I spent years, literally years listening to his show, which followed the Canadiens games on CFCF. Every night, following another Habs win, Ted would come on and tell us over and over how his adopted city was the city of Champions.

Oh my. Heady stuff for a 12 year-old with a self-confidence issue.

I never called in, never even considered it really; that would have been like reaching out to a God and frankly Ted wasn't really into the cute kid thing so until I knew I had something really interesting to say, I figured I'd keep a low profile and call in when I was a little older...

Well, life has a funny way of changing our perceptions and the next thing I knew, Ted was sitting in our living room and for the next few years, he became a fixture in our lives.

And for me, these were a transformative few years. Ted was astute and connected and he did not suffer fools, either gladly or otherwise. Ted had hung out with Ali & Bundini Brown & was close friends with ballplayers like Mack Jones and here he was, sitting in a chair across the coffee-table, sharing stories about those days and telling me what a good writer I could be if I wanted to be. 

um, what?

I could be a good writer?

I could be a good anything?

For real?

This was not happening. Because this was impossible. Ted Tevan was not sitting in my house telling me I was good. Telling me to "keep my hat size constant" because he predicted big things for me.

When I turned 16, I was a counsellor-in-training at a summer camp when I got a telegram from Ted for my birthday. I still have it.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the huge impact reading The Boys of Summer had on me when I was 16. Ted gave it to me.

When our cat died, Ted put a 3-line notice in the paper telling Cinnamon just how much Robert, Melo, Yves and Mom missed him. I still have the clipping.

Ted was a special person. He had a knack with people.

After I graduated from journalism school, life got in the way over the years and we lost touch but about 6 or 7 years ago, I heard he was on the air again and called into his show.

When he heard The Shadow was on the line, I could hear the genuine surprise in his voice and when I told him I was doing well in Toronto, with a family, he repeated the names "Emily and Adam" in that tenor bass voice he had and it made me glad for him to know that I'd turned out ok.

This afternoon, when I read he passed away last night, I sat stunned at a gas station for a few minutes and then did the only thing one can do, when clinging the final remnants of childhood: I called my Mom and told her Ted had died. So it goes.

My sincere condolences to his family and to Ted, thank you for all you did for me, dear friend, and may you rest in peace.

 

Comments

[Ted Bird]

Nice tribute. From the heart. I'm guessing he'd approve.

[Heather]

That was a wonderful wonderful tribute Robert. You were so blessed to have him in your life.
And he was right - you are a wonderful writer.