GOODBYE MICHAEL O’CARROLL
Michael and the blind V/O
You’ll have read all that stuff about ‘they broke the mould when …’
Where the late RTÉ TV Sports producer Michael O’Carroll (who died this week at the age of 89) was concerned they needed extra plaster to make the mould in the first place. He was far larger than any other life I’ve ever encountered. He was a whirling dervish circulating in a tornado unleashed by a hurricane.
On the first few occasions I worked with him he roundly scared the crap out of me. Not intentionally. I just wasn’t used to somebody who fizzed like an electron. I was used to a more sedate approach to the working day (some might even say sedated) but Michael, in his early professional life, had been a turbine in the Shannon hydroelectric scheme at Ardnachrusha. He moved to the Sports Department in RTÉ television in its infancy because the other Shannon turbines complained that he rotated too fast.
I mostly worked with this human spinning top on live golf coverage, usually the Irish Open in places like Killarney and Mount Juliet. But I first got an inkling of what was in store at the Walker Cup in Portmarnock in 1991. There were three Irishmen on the British and Irish team that year, perennial amateur Garth McGimpsey and two younger players you might have heard of, named Pádraig Harrington and Paul McGinley.
No worries if you’re not familiar with them, they quickly faded into obscurity.
Two little-known Irish golfers (in their youth)
The event also marked the introduction to a wider world of one Phil Mickelson, who played left-handed. Still does. Today he has a closet full of green jackets. Back then he was a twenty-one-year old who was destined for superstardom, or the scrap heap. The slums of Beverly Hills are full of former Walker Cup stars. Anyone remember Tom Scherrer? No? Well he was on the same American team.
Anyway, to get back to Michael.
As the competition was drawing to a close (The USA won 14-10 and no one particularly wanted to dwell on their celebrations) it was time to do a wrap from the back of the 18th green. I mentally prepared a rueful piece to camera. But it turned out that Michael had other, more innovate ideas. Michael was a genius when it came to innovation. He had managed to put together a highlights reel to play us out. The only problem was it that it was silent, FX only, crowd noise and such.
‘You can voice over the pictures before closing’ he told me on talkback.
‘How am I going to do that?’ I inquired nervously (I was nervous about everything back then). ‘There’s no monitor here. I can’t see the VT.’ (For the uninitiated, that means videotape – and believe me, I too was one of the uninitiated).
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said breezily, ‘I’ll talk you through it. Just make something up when I tell you what shot we’re on and when it’s done say goodbye.’
I came close to handing in my notice there and then. If you’ve ever tried to talk while someone is burbling incessantly in your ear … well just don’t try it at home. I could never be one of those simultaneous UN or EU translators. But I was still a bit scared of Michael so, like a good boy I did what I was told. I staggered through the voiceover pretty much repeating everything I could hear in my earpiece, until Michael took me out of our agony with a ‘you can wrap now’. I mumbled something to camera about these young amateurs having had the greatest experience of their sporting lives and being ‘blood brothers’ for evermore (I think I’d just seen the musical in the Olympia Theatre) and Michael seemed happy enough.
It was probably all on some highlights show later that night but I have a low shame threshold so I never watched it back. (Just in case I checked YouTube - there’s a five minute highlights package but thanks be to Jaysus, Mary and the wee donkey I’m not on it).
Goodbye Michael. I will always think of you with affection, and just a wee bit of trepidation.
There’s even a commemorative stamp!