The Deseret News’s Brad Rock has been covering the Utah Jazz for as long as I can remember. He worked with the legendary Hot Rod Hundley and was kind enough to do a Q&A with us reminiscing about the glory days. The Rockmonster, as Hot Rod dubbed him, is a 3-time winner of the Dan S. Blumenthal Memorial Writing Contest and 5-time Utah Sportswriter of the Year.
PurpleAndBlues: You’re like the Jerry Sloan of Utah sports reporting, having been in the local biz as long as I can remember. Tell us about your journey to the job.
Brad Rock: The only comparison with Jerry I can see is that I know how to drive a tractor. I won’t be going into anyone’s Hall of Fame.
As for my job, it was blind luck. I graduated from the University of Utah in mass comm/journalism. During college I actually delivered papers, sold newspaper advertising for a weekly, wrote articles for game programs and worked as a stringer covering high schools for the Deseret News.
When I graduated, the Deseret News had an opening, but hired Linda Hamilton, who had a great career at the News. I got two offers coming out of college: a half-time sports writer/half-time news writer for the Rexburg (Ida.) Standard-Journal, or a full-time sports writer (two-person staff) for the Gallup (N.M.) Independent. I went to Gallup. My biggest assignment was the Gallup Bengals, high school football and basketball. I remember sitting on a fence post, covering a rodeo in Window Rock, Ariz., and thinking: “Awesome. I’m a paid writer.”
After seven months in Gallup, I won my first award and was thinking I wanted to make the D-News sorry it hadn’t hired me. So I sent the paper a resume, with the new addition: “Brad Rock, first place, New Mexico Press Association sports features.”
Nobody fainted.
But it so happened that the the week I sent the resume, an opening came up in sports and they hired me.
PnB: What would you be doing if it wasn’t this?
BR: Ambassador to Latvia.
PnB: What do you do for fun when you’re not reporting sports? Because, let’s face it, watching sports for a living is pretty awesome already.
BR: Jogging, hiking, snowshoeing, reading fiction and traveling with my wife Julie are a few things.
After all the years of traveling for work, when we go somewhere, I want to see the city, area, etc., even if I’ve been there before. I want to go to the Old North Church, the Alamo, Churchill Downs, Jackson Square, Venice Beach, etc. My wife likes to stay in one place and read a book. I’m up at 7 saying, “So. What do you want to do today?” She’s like: “Don’t open the curtains.”
PnB: You’re a living link to local legend Hot Rod Hundley, who dubbed you “The Rockmonster.” Do you recall the day he gave you the magnificent nick?
BR: The first year I covered the Jazz was 1990. We sat at midcourt, front row, at the Salt Palace. Hot Rod would sit next to Ron Boone and me.
For some reason, that year, he started calling Booner “The Boonmeister.” I know. It never caught on.
One night the broadcast came back from a commercial break. Hot Rod said, on-air, something like, “You’re lookin’ live at the Salt Palace and I’m here with my buddies Ron Boone, the Boonmeister, and Brad Rock…the Rockmonster!” I thought that was the end of it.
Anyway, the D-News had a commercial that said something generic like, “For the best in Jazz coverage, read Brad Rock in the Deseret News.”
The next night, when he got his cue card on the D-News commercial, he said, “For the best in Jazz coverage, read Brad Rock…the Rockmonster…in the Deseret News.” Great. My own prehistoric name, just like Barney Rubble.
He kept doing it after that, even though the cue card didn’t say. After a few games he started tossing the cue card over his shoulder and shouting, “For the best in Jazz coverage read BradrocktheRockmonster!”
It went on for about 15 years.
PnB: Tell us about who Rod Hundley the man was — we all know and love the legend.
BR: Just a really good guy.
I used to tease him about being famous. I’d say, “Don’t I know you? Weren’t you on that Green Bay Packers team that won the first Super Bowl?”
Or I’d walk into the press room and he would say, “Weren’t you in the 1976 Summer Olympics?” and I’d say, “How nice of you to remember. Yes, I was on the archery team.” Or I’d say, “Didn’t you used to sing backup to Buddy Holly?”
He’d always laugh and say something in return. He has a good heart. He was always good with the fans, signing autographs, talking with them. I don’t ever remember him refusing an autograph.
And believe me, he was pretty famous. Jack Nicholson would talk to him before Los Angeles Lakers games.
Ed: I had the pleasure of meeting the literal Legend Hot Rod Hundley at the Rocky Mountain Review, the summer league series the Utah Jazz used to host at Salt Lake Community College some years ago. It was quite a thrill for me as the 33 in my online handle, Clintonite33, is for Rod’s player number as a Laker.
He was as gracious as Rock says. When I handed Hot Rot the Legends card to sign for me, he looked me in the eye and said, “Well, there’s a legend!” making me feel legendary, rather than him. I’ll never forget that moment for as long as I live.
PnB: You must have had a few wild rides on the road with Hundley. What were some of the craziest things that happened to you out there?
BR: Amazingly, he didn’t go out much that I knew of. I’d see him when we got to the hotel. But I think he spent most of his time in his room. But I know he was up all night. I remember calling him at 12:30 one afternoon to ask him what time the team was leaving for the arena and he sounded sort of groggy. I said, “Sorry, did I wake you up?” Indeed I had.
If the team was leaving for the airport early in the morning, though, he was always there. I only remember him making the team bus wait for him once.
At any rate, he had friends all over the league. Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Walt Frazier and many others always stopped by to see him either courtside or in the press room.
PnB: Most know Hundley is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and that he and wife are rather quiet these days, due to it. Do you still get to speak with him now and then?
BR: I always say hi to him if he’s in town.
I saw him last year at a Jazz game and he was the same good guy. I wasn’t quite sure if he remembered my name.
In other years, even after he’d retired, when I saw him in the press room he would say, “Ladies and gentlemen, Bradrocktherockmonster!” It still makes me laugh. This time he just smiled and said, “Hi, how are you doing?”
He is one of the people I am truly grateful to have known in the media, a genuine legend and a great basketball announcer.
You could hear him on the radio at night, with the dial on scan, and when it stopped you’d know it was an NBA game.
"LOS ANGELES – The best way to listen to Hot Rod Hundley was alone, cruising down a long stretch of highway at night. There was something in the vast darkness on the way to Las Vegas or Evanston that took your mind back to the intersection of what is now John Stockton and Karl Malone Drives. Something in his voice that made you think of, well, an old cowhide globe. A national writer once said Hundley sounded like he had “gargled with salt water on a foggy night.”Even an out-of-state listener, speeding past the Salt Flats on the way to or from the coast, could tell immediately it was an NBA broadcast. The rapid cadences — from “belt-high dribble” to “leapin’ leaner” to “the ol’ cowhide globe hits home!” — perfectly captured the rhythm of the game.Whenever he would call out, “Utah Jazz basketball is comin’ up next, and you gotta love it, baby!” I have to admit, I did.–Brad Rock, Deseret News, circa 2009"
Excuse me, Brad. I have an eyelash, or sand or something, in my eye…