By Keith Thursby, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 20, 2008

Watching a college basketball game on TV used to be a very big deal.

Can it really be 40 years ago that a very young version of me–I was nearly 11–was one of countless sports fans and curious coach potatoes who watched UCLA lose to Houston, 71-69, in the Houston Astrodome? The first regular-season basketball game to be televised nationally was beamed into my little black and white set in Norwalk. I was a witness to history, even though as a UCLA fan I hated the result.

I must admit, I don’t remember much of the game. It did seem a little more like a prize fight than a basketball game, with the huge crowd and the basketball court set like a boxing ring on the stadium floor.

UCLA was hampered by an eye injury to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor. Newspapers in the days leading up to the game had stories about his condition, whether he would play and if he could be anything close to full strength. He played but wasn’t the same dominating player.

"The second half, I could tell he was real tired," teammate Lynn Shackelford told The Times’ Robyn Norwood in a 1998 story looking back at the game. "We kind of had to wait on him a few times to set up the offense–kind of like his last three years in the NBA. We weren’t used to that when he was 20."

Alcindor finished with only 15 points and was overshadowed by Houston’s star, Elvin Hayes, who had 39 points.

A big part of the game’s history, of course, was simply that UCLA lost, snapping a 47-game win streak. Alcindor hadn’t lost a game since high school. The Times’ Jeff Prugh, writing the game story in the next morning’s paper, put its significance about as directly as possible: "It happened!"

The game was credited with showing that basketball can be a ratings winner on television. Dick Enberg, the longtime Southern California sportscaster (Angels, Rams and UCLA) who called the game in Houston, said in The Times’ 1998 story: "You could credit some of the national success of college basketball to the game being on TV. Now, you can check the TV Guide and see 20 games a week."

Like many a kid growing up in Southern California back then, UCLA basketball for me was a television event. After all, no other team in town offered same-night delayed broadcasts of their home games. The Channel 5 games–Enberg did those games too–became appointment viewing for sports fans long before TiVo was invented.

Waiting up to watch an hours-old game sounds prehistoric now. Just like watching anything on a black and white TV. I could get a better picture watching a game on a phone.

But the games were special. A lot of that started in the Astrodome that night.

These days, I often find myself doing the dad thing and telling my two teenage sons to turn off that obscure college basketball game so they can do their homework. After all, there will be more games to choose from the next night.

But will they see anything to match what I’ve seen in black and white? Hard to imagine.

keith.thursby@latimes.com

Keith Thursby is deputy design director for The Times’ California section. He also spent four years as sports editor of the Orange County Edition.