CLEVELAND, Ohio – For many fans, Joe Tait was the Cavaliers.
For nearly two seasons, when he came out in a dispute with then-owner Ted Stepien, Tait, introduced to the Naismith Hall of Fame media wing in 2010, he served as the radio – and occasional television – voice of the team from its inception in 1970 until 2011.
He was there while the Cavs stumbled in the early seasons and when they reached the NBA finals in 2007. He called The Miracle in Richfield in 1976 and The Shot by Michael Jordan in 1989. He interviewed all players, from Austin Carr to LeBron James and all coach from Bill Fitch to Byron Scott.
It was the team’s link in victory and defeat, at home and away from home.
Tait, 83, died Wednesday after a long battle with kidney disease and liver cancer. Service information is not yet available.
In a conversation with Terry Pluto earlier this month, Tait was typically straightforward about his future, although he was also quite curious about the experience.
“I’m not afraid to die,” he said to Pluto. “I think I am an agnostic. I believe that there is a powerful force, a creator.
“I wonder what happens after you die. If anything happens. I’m curious to find out. I know I had a good life. Many people have been great to me. “
“He’s the best,” said Cavs’s senior director of broadcast services, Dave Dombrowski, on the occasion of Tait’s 2,500th broadcast with the team in November 2002. “I think each team thinks it has the best, but we we have.”
The fans seemed to agree. When Stepien fired Tait during the 1980-81 season, fans responded by staging Joe Tait Night at the end of the season at home against the Philadelphia 76ers on March 27, 1981. The crowd of 20,175 was the biggest in four seasons. At the end of the Sixers’ victory in 138-117, fans shouted, “Come on, Joe. Ted must go. “
“It was one of the most memorable nights of my career,” Tait told reporters at the time. “Everything is very moving. I am extremely moved and grateful. “
Years later, he confirmed that the separation was the right decision for him and Stepien.
“If I had stayed with the Cavs at that time, I could have killed him,” he said.
From the broadcast point of view, Tait always said that Game 5 and Game 7 of the 1976 playoff victory over Washington, which became known as The Richfield Miracle, were among his most memorable games and he had a fondness especially by all the teams from those early years.
“I miss that first year, when we went 15-67, and everyone ate together, traveled together, went to the movies together on their days off,” he said in an interview with the Plain Dealer in 2002. “We were like Custer’s last position. We knew that if the other team showed up, we would lose. You became very, very close to these guys. “
Bill Fitch was the coach of that team, and he was the reason why the Cavaliers hired Tait. The two met when Fitch was a coach at Coe College and Tait, an announcer in Monmouth. During the football season, Fitch did some research and often found himself sitting next to a young announcer when visiting Monmouth.
“He could put into words what was going on,” said Fitch in an interview with The Plain Dealer in 2002. “He made a great delivery.”
After Fitch was hired by Cavs, he suggested that Tait would be the perfect announcer for the young team. Tait’s term lasted four times longer than Fitch’s and was more productive. Tait was elected to the Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1992, received the CS Williams Founders Award for long and deserving broadcast services in 1996 and the Legacy Award in 2004. He was named Sportscaster of the Year in Ohio in 1974, 1976, 1978 , 1991, 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2004. He was voted the best radio / TV announcer in the area in a Plain Dealer poll in 1985 and 1986.
In addition, he was inducted into several halls of fame in addition to the Naismith Hall of Fame, including those at Monmouth College, the Cleveland Sports Media Association, the Cleveland Sports Legends, the Lorain Sports and the Cleveland Press Club. The Basketball Hall of Fame honored him with the Curt Gowdy Media Award in 2010.
Not bad for a child who wanted to be a writer.
Born on May 15, 1937, in Evanston, Illinois, Tait grew up on a farm in Amboy, Illinois. He played football, basketball and soccer, but he soon realized that he was not very good at any of them. He loved sports, however, and he loved to write. His plan was to enroll at Monmouth College for three years and then transfer to the University of Missouri school of journalism.
He never did that. A speech teacher in Monmouth recognized his potential immediately and sent him to a basketball game with a tape recorder. Tait played the game step by step and the school passed it on to the student union for those who wanted to hear the replay.
A star was born. His career included stops in Galesburg, Illinois, Monmouth, Armed Forces Radio when he was in the Army, Decatur, Illinois, Rockford, Illinois, and Frankfort, Ind. He taught some classes at Ohio University and Mount Union College, where he broadcast the Purple Raiders football games and also served on the Board of Trustees.
At one time or another, he broadcast the WNBA Rockers, Indians, Cleveland Barons, New Jersey Nets, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Indiana University football and the World Basketball League, as well as the week’s college basketball game for the CBS Radio. While playing the games of the Indians on television, he summoned Len Barker’s perfect game in 1981.
But his greatest fame was with the Cavaliers, who named him vice president of broadcasting services in 1987 and honored him with a special “bobble belly” doll in 2002.
If Cavs was playing, Tait was in the air. A fun evening was waiting for his opening phrase “It’s basketball time at (make your choice, Colosseum, Gund or Quicken Loans Arena)” until its traditional closing, “Have a good night, everyone.”
He seemed to find the perfect mix of description, commentary, statistics, and fun – or criticism, if necessary. When James was preparing to become the No. 1 choice in the 2003 draft, Tait expressed concern about James’ growth in the media while at St. Vincent-St. Maria was bad for James and for the sport.
“I don’t blame (James) for all of this,” said Tait. “It is only the professional sports mentality that permeates the entire high school. Some of the summer teams are just pits. “
That said, Tait acknowledged James’s supernatural talents, as well as the demands placed on the basis of the franchise. He knew that the national media wanted every second with James, so the hometown voice accepted that he would not have similar access.
“I simply asked LeBron to do a post-game interview with me every year,” he said. “Many of our games were broadcast on national television and have always wanted to. He usually did his only interview a year. Once, I remember him coming to the press table, sitting across from me. I said, ‘Well, look who’s here!’ LeBron said: ‘I said I would come.’ “
When James left the Cavaliers and went to Miami to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, Tait was outspoken in his disapproval of the change and the NBA allowed it.
“You (should) do what the NFL did and name franchise players and legislate that they can’t move on and have their own small groups,” Tait told Jason Lloyd, then of the Akron Beacon-Journal. “This thing goes back to the AAU ball and has to be stopped. If you don’t stop, you will destroy the league. “
The league has survived, as has the reputation of the man who has been the team’s voice for more than two generations. This voice will remain in the memory of fans for many years to come.