Nantz

It's difficult, if not impossible, to run away from your past, and CBS didn't even try yesterday as it returned to the NFL after a four-year absence.At the top of the new "NFL Today" pre-game show, the network aired a montage of its storied football history with footage of Pat Summerall, John Madden, Jack Buck, Vin Scully, Brent Musburger, Phyllis George and Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, all parts -- good or bad -- of CBS' four decades of NFL telecasts.The...

If there's anyone who knows what a good Olympic television anchor is supposed to be, it's Jim McKay, whose warmth, sincerity and intelligence guided American audiences through two decades of coverage.And from his living room, both in his winter home in Florida and in his usual residence in Maryland, McKay says CBS' prime-time anchor, Jim Nantz, who has drawn some criticism for being a bit aloof, is doing just fine."He's one of the most sincere guys I've ever met in my life. He's really hit his stride, and he's hit it well," said McKay.

If the American Olympic viewing audience was measuring the performance of prime-time anchor Jim Nantz against his CBS predecessors, Nantz would win hands down, for the people who have sat in his chair for the Eye were darn near indistinguishable.(In fact, without looking down further in this space, here's a challenge: Name two or even one of the three people who anchored CBS' Winter Olympics coverage in 1992 and 1994. Answer below.)Unfortunately for Nantz, his competition in the American consciousness is Jim McKay, who anchored ABC's Olympics coverage for 20 years with a warmth and charm that few broadcasters have ever captured.

CBS took the expected one step further yesterday when it not only named Jim Nantz as its prime-time host for the 1998 Olympic Winter Games from Nagano, Japan, but also extended his contract through 2002.In addition, the network announced that Nantz, 38, who currently calls college football and basketball for CBS as well as anchoring its golf coverage, will leave the football booth to anchor a weekly 30-minute college football studio show."I'm thrilled that this day has arrived. I started with CBS when I was 26 years old and I feel like I've grown up at this network," Nantz said.

When asked if CBS' new golf coordinating producer, Lance Barrow, will bring a noticeable change to the way the network televises the sport, anchor Jim Nantz turns the question on the questioner, giving a list of five sites from last season and asking him to pick the one Barrow didn't produce.The point of Nantz's exercise is that as Barrow eases into the producer's chair left vacant with the semiretirement of Frank Chirkinian, the golf viewer should notice no difference in the way CBS approaches the game as it begins its 1997 schedule this weekend with third- and fourth-round coverage of the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

In Norse legend, Valhalla meant heaven for those who fell in battle. For this weekend's PGA Championship, the Valhalla Golf Club will mean a place for good scores.That's the take of Jim Nantz and Gary McCord, two of CBS' platoon of golf experts who will call the action from the Jack Nicklaus-designed course in Louisville, where the combination of dry, warm conditions and favorable surfaces should yield birdies, eagles and better. There were two holes-in-one on the first day alone."The greens are bizarre, and the course has all kinds of swoops and sways.

Amid all the tumult, trials and tribulations that have swept over the CBS Sports operation in the past few years, the one rock of consistency has been Jim Nantz.And when Kentucky and Syracuse battle for the NCAA men's national basketball championship tonight (Channel 13, 9 p.m.), Nantz again will be at the core of what is the network's signature sports event as the symbol of CBS, in much the same fashion that Bob Costas is at NBC, or Al Michaels is at ABC."I'm very comfortable with that role or perception.

NEW YORK -- Like the groundhog, Rick Gentile, temporarily the most important man in America, only occasionally poked his head out of the mini-control room off to the side of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center here yesterday.And like the furry animal whose presence indicates an end to winter, the appearance of Gentile, with his curly salt-and-pepper hair stuffed inside a Final Four cap, meant all was well with CBS' NCAA tournament coverage."We had a good day. We just didn't have any buzzer-beaters," said Gentile, CBS Sports senior vice president of production, and the man who heads the team that decides when the Connecticut-Colgate blowout your local station has been assigned becomes the Stanford-Bradley game.

Nighttime talk show host Stan "The Fan" Charles will be leaving WWLG (1360 AM) after Friday night's show, but the nature of his departure is up in the air.Although Charles has said he was "moving on to explore some other possibilities in the media," WWLG management contends that the precise terms of his leaving have not been finalized.Michael Hodes, WWLG's principal owner, said that there's "no acrimony" between his station and Charles, but that final language to let Charles out of his contract has not been agreed upon.

The TV Repairman:No matter what kind of a weekend Billy Packer and Jim Nantz have calling the NCAA tournament tomorrow and Monday night, an Emmy should be set aside immediately for the pair for an unwritten rule they have lived by since becoming the premier CBS college hoops voices."