A Good Match for USC-UCLA Matchup

Brad Nessler has never been to a USC-UCLA game, but he is well aware of the tradition.

“As a youngster growing up in Minnesota, it was just one of those games you always watched,” he said. “In those days, before regionalization, the entire nation saw Michigan-Ohio State and then USC-UCLA the same day.”

For his first USC-UCLA game on Saturday, Nessler, 41, a graduate of Mankato State, will have a pretty good seat, high up in the Coliseum press box.

Nessler and Gary Danielson will announce the game for ABC.

Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game is a national telecast, with Keith Jackson and Bob Griese, and USC-UCLA is one of six 12:30 regional telecasts. Another is Washington State-Washington, meaning it is available here only on pay-per-view.

This is the Nessler-Danielson team’s first year with

ABC, but the two worked together on college football for ESPN for five years. That’s why they click so well.

It’s an ideal pairing. Nessler has been doing play by play since he was 19. He has been the radio voice of the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons, also doing local radio in Atlanta, and the experience shows. The Jim Nantz sound-alike is outstanding.

Danielson, a solid communicator, brings expert commentary to the table, having starred as a quarterback at Purdue in the early 1970s and then playing for the Detroit Lions. He was working in a sheet-metal plant with he signed with the Lions as a free agent in 1976.

The other member of the team is sideline reporter Dean Blevins, an Oklahoma radio and television sportscaster.

Nessler said that he and Danielson just sort of fell into the Pacific 10 beat.

“I don’t know how it happened,” he said. “I live in Atlanta and Gary lives in Detroit.”

They’ve seen the Bruins and Trojans three times this season. They worked UCLA’s 52-28 victory over Washington last Saturday.

“We did UCLA-Texas after UCLA lost its first two games,” he said. “The feeling then was this may be the best 0-2 team in the country, and now it appears that was the case.”

MEANWHILE ON RADIO

Larry Kahn and Mike Lamb are in their third season on USC radio broadcasts and have been joined by sideline reporter Tony Fimino. Kahn and Lamb work hard and their preparation shows. Lamb was named best local radio commentator last year by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Assn., and rightly so.

UCLA radio play-by-play announcer Chris Roberts has another new partner this season, Billy Ray Smith. The oddity here is that Smith is not a former Bruin. He was an All-American linebacker at Arkansas.

“We liked the work Billy Ray had done on our Charger tailgate talk shows on XTRA and we thought he’d be able to bring a player’s perspective to the broadcasts,” said Bill Pugh, head of operations for XTRA 690 and AM 1150. “We went to UCLA officials and they said they didn’t have a problem with not using a former Bruin.

“We like the chemistry between Chris and Billy Ray, and both are class people.”

Speaking of class people, reader Mike Dickerson of Fountain Valley called Thursday to relay a story about UCLA sideline reporter Matt Stevens, whose battle with cancer was chronicled in Thursday’s Times.

Dickerson said his son Brice, then 10, was on the sideline for the 1986 Rose Bowl game, when Stevens quarterbacked UCLA to a victory over Iowa. Brice was there because of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He had brain cancer.

“Among all the commotion after the game, Matt took the time to kneel down and talk to Brice and he gave him his wrist bands and towel. And Terry Donahue awarded him a game ball. It was a lifetime highlight for Brice.”

Brice Dickerson, who went on to play baseball at Fountain Valley High, Stevens’ alma mater, died in 1994 at 18 after a nine-year battle with the disease.

MORE WORLDS TO CONQUER

Two weeks ago Fox announced its entry into college football, making a deal to begin televising the Cotton Bowl in 1999. On Monday, look for Fox to announce its entry into another sport--horse racing. The announcement will be that Fox will televise the Santa Anita Derby on April 4. Fox plans to use a number of innovations, such as putting microphones around the track to pick up the noise of the horses running.

WEST 2 BREAKTHROUGH

Good news for Time Warner cable subscribers: Most Time Warner systems in Southern California began carrying Fox Sports West 2 this week, and others will launch the network soon.

That means an additional 340,000 homes for West 2, bringing the total to 2.5 million. A deal with Comcast is in the works, meaning another 200,000 homes. But the Century stalemate continues.

SMALL WORLD

Coincidentally, on Thursday night Vin Scully and Chick Hearn were honored at separate functions. Scully was honored by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in North Hollywood and Hearn was honored by the City of Hope with a special Victor Award in Beverly Hills.

SHORT WAVES

Jim Lampley, a veteran of eight Olympic Games, was named host of TNT’s Winter Olympics coverage. Since Lampley works for HBO, this signals the start of a cooperative effort between Time Warner, which owns HBO, and Turner Sports. The two companies are now under one umbrella. Under an agreement with CBS, Turner will air more than 50 hours from the Games in Nagano, Japan. . . . CBS announced this week that it will televise the Pepsi 400 at Daytona on July 4 at 5 p.m., which is prime time in the East. . . . CBS and ESPN sort of swapped college basketball analysts, with former Indiana Pacer Clark Kellogg going to CBS full time and Quinn Buckner returning to ESPN, where he worked from 1986 to ’89. ESPN also announced it has hired former Dallas Maverick guard Rolando Blackman as an analyst. . . . For jungle dwellers who don’t already know, Jim Rome will make two rare Southern California tour stops Saturday--one at noon at the National Sports Grill in Anaheim and another at 4 p.m. at the one in Fullerton.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for sports programs Nov. 15-17.

SATURDAY*--*

Event Ch. Rating Share College football: Washington at UCLA 7 11.0 28 College football: Oregon at Arizona State 9 3.2 7 College football: Notre Dame at LSU 2 1.8 4 Golf: Shark Shootout 2 2.1 6 Hockey: Dallas at Kings 9 2.0 3

*--*

SUNDAY

*--*

Event Ch. Rating Share Pro football: Washington at Dallas 11 14.0 30 Pro football: Denver at Kansas City 4 13.2 14 Pro football: Minnesota at Detroit 11 5.7 14 Soccer: World Cup qualifying, Jamaica-Mexico 34 4.2 10 Figure skating: Skate America 11 3.2 6 Soccer: World Cup qualifying, U.S.-El Salvador 7 2.3 5 Soccer: World Cup qualifying, Costa Rica-Canada 34 2.1 5 Golf: Shark Shootout 2 1.2 3 Hockey: Dallas at Mighty Ducks 9 1.2 2

*--*

MONDAY

*--*

Event Ch. Rating Share Pro football: Buffalo at Miami 7 18.4 27

*--*

Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households.