Chuck Howard

Charles (Chuck) Howard (1933-November 21,1996) was an American television executive, and a pioneer in television sports broadcasting.

Howard was born in 1933. He graduated from Duke University in 1955, where he was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

Following his college graduation, Howard entered the management training program at Chase Manhattan Bank. In 1960, he made an abrupt career turn and became a production assistant at Edgar J. Scherick's company, Sports Programs, Inc., the forerunner to ABC Sports.

In 1961, Roone Arledge charged him with scouting sports events throughout the world in an effort to discover sports that had a loyal following but might be unknown to American television viewers. The result was the April 21, 1961 debut of ABC's Wide World of Sports, the groundbreaking television sports anthology program.

Arledge, Howard and commentator Jim McKay created the show on a week-by-week basis during its first year of broadcast, establishing a sports television tradition in the process.

Howard went on to become a vice president for programming at ABC Sports and covered nine Olympic Games, the Super Bowl, World Series, British Open, Kentucky Derby, Indianapolis 500 and NCAA football -- as well as Acapulco cliff diving, Demolition Derby, rodeos, bobsled racing, arm wrestling and Evel Knievel's daredevil antics.

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