That term has become a bit overused. From social media influencers to suburban Substackers, everyone loves to declare themselves a storyteller. The great ones never need to wear that name tag, though. You know them as soon as you hear them.
Ken Squier was, above all else, a storyteller.
“Like bullets they propel themselves out of the corner!”
“He’s getting some air … gobbling it up in that car, No. 88, keeping it cool to get ready for that final assault …”
“Johnny Utsman hand grenades the engine! It detonates right at the start-finish line!”
Squier’s own remarkable life story ended Wednesday night, passing away at the age 88. But the sound of his perfectly balanced hard-yet-gentle New England voice and the stories it told us all, from the public address speakers of Vermont and MRN Radio to CBS and TBS television, will never stop echoing off the walls and halls of racetracks and the broadcast booths that look over them.
“Look at that Oklahoma land rush on the backstretch!”
“He fireballs his way into the lead!”
Squier’s story is equal parts Howard Cosell and Johnny Appleseed. He was a New Englander, born and raised in Waterbury, Vermont, the son of a radio station owner. He’d listen to auto races carried by WDEV and became enamored with the urgent, gallant descriptions of the men who piloted hurtling pieces of machinery around places such as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, devouring and studying those broadcasts like a literature professor delving into Shakespeare and Chaucer. He took what he learned to the PA microphones of short tracks throughout race-car-obsessed New England. The talent that oozed from those speakers caught the ear of NASCAR president Bill France, who was kicking around the idea of a radio network that could bring his stock car races to a broader audience.
“I think, at least I hope, that what Bill heard was something different,” Squier recalled in a 2013 conversation following his election to the NASCAR Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence. Yes, that’s his name on the award. “When we first started discussing what we could do that was perhaps a little different was focusing on the drivers. There would always be a place to discuss the mechanical aspects of the cars and the race strategy, all of that. But in the end, it had to be about those heroes behind the wheel and the death-defying stuntmen who went over the wall to pit those cars. It’s not about metal and engines and tires; it’s about the people and the stories behind those people, because they are remarkable people.”
So was he.
With France’s blessing, it was Squier who constructed the Motor Racing Network in 1970, with races carried by a collection of radio stations that grew from a smattering of southern outposts to a nationwide chain that reached into the hundreds. He assembled a team of fellow local racing broadcasters and PA announcers, including the man who shares top billing on the Squier-Hall Award, the pride of Elkin, North Carolina, Barney Hall.
“So, you took a Vermont Yankee and a North Carolina hillbilly and you put them on the radio together to talk about race cars,” Hall recalled in 2013 with a chuckle. “But it worked. And it worked because Ken believed that if you could tell a story in a unique way, use different words, really take the listener down into the infield, make them feel like they were there, then it didn’t matter where you were from. Just look at our teams at MRN and what he had on TV. Broadcasters from all over the place. That made listeners from all over the place feel welcome on a Sunday afternoon.”
It was never enough for Squier to simply broadcast NASCAR races and be done. He was always working on a deal somewhere. He was instrumental in helping the sanctioning body ink its landmark deal with CBS, a partnership that lasted two decades and began with what is inarguably Squier’s most famous moment: the finish of the very first CBS flag-to-flag live broadcast, the 1979 Daytona 500.
“And there’s a fight! Between Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison, their tempers overflowing. They’re angry. They know they have lost. And what a bitter defeat.”
Squier never stopped running WDEV and its regional network, which his family still owns, and for decades, even as he jetted off to commentate Olympic speedskating or to shoot movie scenes with Burt Reynolds, he still found time to cohost a weekly WDEV show titled “Music to Go to the Dump By.” He never stopped doing whatever he could to keep up the health of grassroots racing in New England, even when he had become larger than racing life, especially his beloved Thunder Road Speedbowl, a quarter-mile hilltop oval in Barre, Vermont, that he founded more than 60 years ago.
“You would watch him on TV doing a race from Talladega on CBS with Dale Earnhardt battling Richard Petty and then three nights later he’d be with us doing public address at Thunder Road,” two-time Xfinity Series champ Randy Lajoie recalled at the NASCAR Hall of Fame standing next to Squier in 2013. “I would say, ‘Ken, you know you don’t have to slum it with us anymore,’ and he’d say, ‘I love it here. And you’ll be racing at Talladega with us soon enough.’ Damn if that wasn’t true. And I think he had a lot to do with people down there even knowing who I was.”
Squier was always scouting for and coaching up young talent, both on the racetrack and those talking about the racetrack. An endless roster of former and current motorsports broadcasters, from broadcast and cable TV to terrestrial and satellite radio, got their first breaks at one of his racetracks or radio stations. And no matter where any NASCAR media member comes from, anyone of a certain age with a media center credential has at least a few stories to tell about Ken Squier calling, writing a letter or pulling them behind a stack of tires in the garage with suggestions, advice and a bit of razor-edged New England criticism.
“Don’t settle for ordinary words of description when extraordinary words are available.”
“Connect the everyman with Superman and Superman with everyman.”
“Never forget, no matter how big it gets, above all else this sport is about common men doing uncommon things.”
The last time I chatted with Squier in person, we talked about a column of mine he had just read and didn’t like. He told me that he didn’t agree with my premise, but he appreciated my passion. Then he noticed my ring, emblazoned with the red, white and blue shield of Captain America. He grabbed my hand and pointed at the emblem.
“Well, of course you like superheroes. We are surrounded by them every weekend at the racetrack.”
Yes, we are. And Ken Squier was one of them. The superhero of motorsports storytellers.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — LSU coach Brian Kelly was caught on camera screaming at one player and getting yelled at by another.
The sideline scenes were clear signs of frustration for a program that was on its way to losing a third consecutive game, at unranked Florida on Saturday. Now, the Tigers (6-4, 3-3 SEC) will be the ones out of the polls following the 27-16 defeat.
And the LSU fan base might be out of patience with Kelly.
“This is a simple exercise of do you want to fight or not?” Kelly said after his team’s latest loss. “Do you want to fight and take responsibility as coaches and players that we’re not playing well and we’re struggling right now?
“There’s a rough spot here that we have to fight through, and we have to do it together.”
Kelly appeared to get into it with wide receiver Chris Hilton Jr. in the first half. Kelly got in Hilton’s face after a play, and online lip readers suggested Kelly eventually called Hilton “uncoachable.”
Late in the third quarter, cameras captured wideout Kyren Lacy yelling at Kelly on the sideline after an empty possession.
In the clip, Lacy could be seen apparently letting Kelly have it. The coach’s eyes widened as he seemingly realized what was happening. The ABC camera quickly cut away from the interaction.
LSU lost to Florida for the first time since 2018. This one came despite the Tigers running 92 plays and having the ball for more than 41 minutes.
“We’re going to put guys on the field that are going to fight and do everything they can do to correct where we are right now — and that is struggling with consistent execution,” Kelly said. “I think we’ve seen it enough to know we have to be better as coaches and players.”
Kelly’s streak of 10-win seasons will end at seven. Kelly won double-digit games in each of his last five seasons at Notre Dame and extended it with consecutive 10-win campaigns in Baton Rouge.
But losing three in a row, to Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida, makes it impossible to get past nine victories.
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia coach Kirby Smart wouldn’t say if being ranked 12th by the College Football Playoff selection committee motivated the Bulldogs to prove a point in Saturday night’s game against No. 7 Tennessee.
Coming off last week’s ugly 28-10 loss at Ole Miss, their second defeat of the season, the Bulldogs would be the first team left out of the playoff if the 12-team bracket was based on the current rankings. No. 13 Boise State would have received the automatic bid as the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion and have jumped them.
That’s probably not the case anymore, after Georgia manhandled Tennessee 31-17 at Sanford Stadium.
“I don’t know what they’re looking for. I really don’t,” Smart said of the CFP selection committee. “I wish they could really define the criteria. I wish they could do the eyeball test where they come down here and look at the people we’re playing against and look at them. You can’t see that stuff on TV, and so I don’t know what they look for. But that’s for somebody else to decide. I’m worried about our team.”
For the first time in a while, Georgia looked pretty good on both sides of the ball against Tennessee. The Bulldogs fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter but came back to tie the score at 17 at the half. Tennessee had only eight first downs and didn’t score in the final 30 minutes. It was the ninth time a Josh Heupel-coached team has scored fewer than 20 points; four of them came against Georgia.
The Bulldogs won their 29th consecutive game at home and defeated the Volunteers for the eighth straight time, all by double digits.
“Our kids showed resilience,” Smart said. “I’m proud of them. Look, it was a week ago, a couple of hours, that we were dead and gone. People had written us off. It’s hard to play in this league, week in and week out, on the road.”
After the Ole Miss loss, Georgia fell from third to 12th in the CFP rankings. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, the chairman of the CFP selection committee, said the Bulldogs’ inconsistent offense and turnovers were reasons why.
“They’re not in that environment,” Smart said. “They’re not at Ole Miss in that environment, playing against that defense, which is top five in the country with one of the best pass rushers in the country, and they’re fired up. They got a two-score lead, and they’re coming every play. They don’t know. They don’t understand that.”
Georgia has played the most difficult schedule in the FBS, according to ESPN’s College Football Power Index, and has the third-best strength of record, which reflects whether an average Top 25 team would have a team’s record or better against its schedule.
The Bulldogs also lost 41-34 at Alabama on Sept. 28 after falling behind 28-0 in the first half. They defeated Clemson 34-3 in their opener and won 30-15 at Texas on Oct. 19.
Adding a dominant victory over Tennessee should help Georgia’s CFP chances. It closes the regular season with two non-SEC games at home, against UMass on Saturday and rival Georgia Tech on Nov. 29.
“It’s just the tale of each week, and we’re trying to be the cumulative, whole, really good quality team and not be on this emotional roller coaster that’s controlled by people in a room somewhere that may not understand football like we do as coaches,” Smart said. “We as coaches, look at people and say, ‘What can we do better? How do we get better?’ I respect their decision. I respect their opinion. But I mean, it’s different in our league.”
One of the big reasons for Georgia’s success against Tennessee was quarterback Carson Beck, who completed 25 of 40 passes for 347 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He had thrown 12 interceptions in the previous six games.
Beck also scored on a 10-yard run that gave Georgia a 24-17 lead with 5:32 left in the third quarter.
“I didn’t really feel any pressure, to be honest,” Beck said. “I stood up in front of the team on Monday and talked to them about how I felt about how our season has gone. I told them that whatever has happened has happened and that all we can control is what we can control moving forward.”
Georgia’s offensive line didn’t allow a sack, while the Bulldogs sacked Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava five times. Georgia had 453 yards and went 5-for-5 in the red zone.
“I think everybody understood the situation that we were in,” Beck said. “When our backs are against the wall, the only way out is through what is in front of you.”
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Nov 17, 2024, 02:11 PM ET
Julian Lewis, the No. 2 player and quarterback in the 2025 class, decommitted from USC on Sunday, sources told ESPN, sealing a seismic development for one of the nation’s top prospects in the closing weeks of the recruiting cycle.
Lewis’ decommitment, which had been expected, comes the day after the 6-foot-1, 195-pound quarterback took an unofficial visit to Georgia for the game against Tennessee. He also visited Colorado on Oct. 26 and expressed interest in Indiana throughout his recruitment.
The plan remains for Lewis to commit in the upcoming weeks and enroll early in school, according to sources. He’s the top uncommitted player in the class of 2025 and his choice looms as one of the biggest stories of the early signing period with Colorado, Georgia and Indiana expected to contend for his signature before the signing period opens Dec. 4.
Sources also told ESPN on Sunday that four-star Texas A&M quarterback pledge Husan Longstreet, No. 47 in the 2025 ESPN 300, has flipped his pledge to USC in the wake of Lewis’ departure from the Trojans’ incoming class.
USC quarterbacks coach Luke Huard attended Longstreet’s playoff game at Corona Centennial High School in California on Friday night, and ESPN’s No. 4 pocket passer visited the Trojans during their game against Nebraska on Saturday.
Lewis had been verbally committed to the Trojans since Aug. 22, 2023. Yet questions had swirled over his recruitment from the summer into the fall and all the way through to his decommitment from USC on Sunday.
Lewis’ move marks the latest blow to a USC class that has now lost six commitments from the 2025 ESPN 300 in this cycle.
That list of high-profile departures from Lincoln Riley’s incoming class includes five-star defenders Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson, and Lewis’ exit stands as USC’s third recruiting loss in the past seven days following the flips of defensive lineman Hayden Lowe (Miami) and cornerback Shamar Arnoux (Auburn).
The Trojans sat ninth in ESPN’s latest class rankings for the 2025 cycle prior to Lewis’ decommitment.
With the move, Lewis instantly regains status as the one of nation’s most sought-after uncommitted prospects. He first entered that realm in 2022 when he burst onto the national scene with 4,118 yards and 48 touchdowns while leading Carrollton to the Georgia 7A state title game in his freshman season.
That debut campaign earned Lewis a place as the No. 1 prospect in the 2026 class before he reclassified into the 2025 cycle earlier this year, several months after his commitment to USC last August.