Radio Recap: The Grantland Rice Story

The Grantland Rice Story was a 15-minute syndicated program released from September 17, 1955 to September 8, 1956. It was based on the writings of Grantland Rice, a famous sports reporter who had died just before the series was made. In the show, Jimmy Powers would read from Rice's autobiography The Tumult and the Shouting (1945), giving the series a feel similar to that of a book-on-tape. Some episodes feature interviews between Powers and other sports writers who knew Rice, and with some of the sports figures whom Rice wrote about.

I found this a surprisingly interesting program; Rice met a lot of famous athletes in his time and there are lively anecdotes about some; it's also a look into a bygone age, something Powers remarked at the opening of the series as sports journalism in newspapers had already been greatly transformed due to television broadcasting. It also looks at sports which were not widely-known at the time, such as Rice's writing on the golf craze (I noted this phenomenon when I reviewed Judge magazine).

You can hear the Old Time Radio Researchers' collection of The Grantland Rice Story through the playlist below: