John Miley, 93, is donating his collection of more than 44,000 sports broadcasts in various audio and video formats to the National Sports Journalism Center at The Media School on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. Photo by James Brosher, Indiana University
“Let’s talk about the California Stanford game in 1982.”
John Miley can talk with anybody about sports, and at 93 years old, he still recalls every detail of his favorite games. Sharing his passion for sports with others is what inspired Miley to donate his life’s work to the National Sports Journalism Center at The Media School on the Indiana University Bloomington campus.
Throughout his life, Miley has amassed a collection that includes more than 44,000 sports broadcasts in various audio and video formats. The recordings span nearly a century of radio and TV sporting events, with the earliest dating back to the 1930s.
The Media School plans to use the collection as a resource to bolster its sports broadcasting courses and extracurricular programs related to sports broadcasting, such as Big Ten Plus and WIUX.
"Providing students with the ability to listen to the great sports broadcasters of past years will help their development as broadcasters and professionals," said Galen Clavio, director of the National Sports Journalism Center at IU Bloomington. Photo by Chris Meyer, Indiana University
“This is a one-of-a-kind collection in terms of its breadth and depth, and the sheer number of broadcasts makes it a truly unique thing for IU and The Media School to have,” said Galen Clavio, director of the National Sports Journalism Center at IU Bloomington.
“In terms of research, this collection is a treasure trove of American broadcasting history, which will be of invaluable assistance to historians and researchers who are studying the development of sports broadcasting techniques and cultural influence over the past century.”
Miley, a business owner who created the collection in his spare time, didn’t discriminate when it came to recording games. His collection includes college and pro baseball, college and pro football, college and pro basketball, hockey, horse racing, golf and more.
He began at an early age, recording audio of his favorite games using reel-to-reel tape.
“I started out this collection in 1947 when I was in high school, but I really didn’t do too much with it until 1962,” Miley said.
Miley’s collection includes all World Series games from 1954 to present with several additional series from as early as 1934, most of the MLB All-Star games and every Super Bowl game. He has more than 1,000 recorded games with play-by-play by Harry Caray, and he has Yankees pitcher Don Larsen’s perfect game from the 1956 World Series in its entirety, with Vin Scully and Mel Allen doing play-by-play. The collection also includes half a century of Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500 races.
IU will digitize the entire Miley Collection, a process that will take several years to complete as much of the collection is preserved on analog reel-to-reel tape, VHS and other linear formats. Photo by James Brosher, Indiana University
“The 1982 California Stanford game is probably the most outstanding game that I have,” Miley said. “I’ve got recordings of both radio networks, and then I’ve got two different television networks.”
The 1982 game between ultimate rivals the Stanford Cardinals and University of California-Berkeley Golden Bears is considered one of the most memorable games in American sports history. Stanford led 20-19 after a field goal with four seconds remaining in the game. Convinced of an imminent victory, the Stanford band went onto the field midway during the final play, but they were shocked by a last-second kickoff return for a touchdown by the Golden Bears that included six lateral passes.
Golden Bears defensive back Kevin Moen ran over a brass player in the Stanford band as he rushed the ball into the end zone.
A sports fan since childhood
Miley grew up in Long Beach, California, until the age of 10, when his father’s employer transferred him to Evansville, Indiana. He still remembers stepping off the train in Evansville in 1942 — the same year his father took him to his first baseball game. At the time, Miley was a big football fan and knew little about baseball, unlike his new classmates.
“Everybody here knew about baseball,” Miley said. “They always told me ‘Baseball is the national pastime.’ I said, ‘Not in my house.’”
Professional baseball player Stan Musial, a rookie for the St. Louis Cardinals, slides into base during a game against the Atlanta Braves in 1942. Photo by Archive Photos, Getty Images
His dad took him to see the St. Louis Browns play the New York Yankees, but Miley was not immediately impressed.
“At about the third inning I said, ‘Dad, can we go because this is so boring I can’t stand it,’” Miley said.
They stuck it out through the entire game, and his tune changed by the end.
Later that year, his dad took him to Game 1 of the 1942 World Series. While the St. Louis Cardinals lost that game, they went on to defeat the New York Yankees in the series 4-1, and Miley got to see Cardinals outfielder and first baseman Stan Musial — one of Major League Baseball’s greatest hitters — in action. The Cardinals quickly became Miley’s favorite baseball team, although he said football will always be his favorite sport.
Building a team
For many years, Miley had a network of people helping him record, capturing games in various divisions and conferences across the country. The tape network came about rather accidentally.
A 1977 article in The Sporting News provided an unexpected boost to Miley’s collection. Writer Bill Madden wrote, inaccurately, that Miley had a “network” of people helping him record and concluded the article by telling those interested in joining the network to contact Miley via a post office box. Miley received several letters from those interested in helping him record.
“I wrote each one of the persons that wrote me and said, ‘Just tell me what games you can tape and what sport,’” Miley said. “Each week, I would let them know what games I wanted.”
His network eventually reached roughly 50 people who recorded games across the country. As tapes poured in, Miley reviewed them and decided whether to keep an entire game or cut it down to just the highlights.
Miley's collection grew as a network of roughly 50 people helped record games from across the country. As tapes poured in, Miley reviewed them and decided whether to keep an entire game or cut it down to just the highlights. Photo by James Brosher, Indiana University
Unexpected friendships
As a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, Miley was surprised one long-ago Saturday morning to learn of highlights he didn’t have in his collection.
“I thought I had every St. Louis highlight you could have,” Miley said.
He learned of the gap in his collection while listening to Bob Costas on KMOX radio in St. Louis. He waited until Costas was off the air and called the station, half expecting no one to pick up. They answered, and to Miley’s surprise they handed the phone to Costas.
“We had a 15- to 20-minute conversation, and he became aware that I had a bunch of stuff that he might be able to use, and he had stuff that I could add to my collection,” Miley said. “So he took the time to come to Evansville and spend about four or five hours with me, and we developed a great friendship.”
Miley is also friends with Don Fischer, the “Voice of the Hoosiers” who has called play-by-play for IU football and basketball games for more than 50 years. Fischer helped him create an audio piece highlighting Hoosier basketball.
“Don narrated it,” Miley said. “I wrote the script and picked out the highlights.”
Finding a home
Now in his seventh decade of collecting games, Miley said he has been hunting for a home for his collection for many years.
“I need to know before I pass away that this stuff is going to be available to everybody that wants to look at it, or listen to it,” Miley said.
Four generations of John Mileys in front of a banner that reads “The Miley Collection: The Foremost Collection of Sports Audio in the World.” Photo courtesy of John Miley
After consulting with Costas and IU alumnus Mark Cuban, Miley decided Indiana University would be the best home for his collection. He had known for a long time that he wanted it to go somewhere where people could access the collection, at a school that already had a robust communications and media curriculum and a bounty of resources, including facilities for digitization.
Miley was put in contact with Clavio, who is also associate dean for undergraduate education and professor of sports media at The Media School.
Clavio visited Miley at his home in Evansville, knowing that Miley’s gift would be an extraordinary resource for IU students and researchers.
“Having such a vast archive of sports broadcasts is of tremendous help to our students and their professional development, while also bolstering Indiana University’s reputation as a Research-1 Institution,” Clavio said. “We have a large sports broadcasting program filled with incredibly talented students. Providing them with the ability to listen to the great sports broadcasters of past years will help their development as broadcasters and professionals.”
The collection will be set up in a similar manner to the Indiana Broadcast History Archive, where people with research access to the collection will be able to log into IU’s computer network and use a searchable database to find broadcasts. Franklin Hall, the home of The Media School, will also house a public display and computer access terminal where IU students and faculty can access the collection. Researchers and historians from outside IU will be able to request a guest login.
The digitization process will take several years to complete, as much of the collection is preserved on analog reel-to-reel tape, VHS and other linear formats. A portion of the collection is already in digital formats and will be available sooner.
The Media School plans to host an event on Sep. 16 to celebrate the collection, with Miley in attendance.
Miley said he couldn’t be happier knowing his collection will go to IU, and he continues to build the resources that will benefit generations of students and researchers into the future.
“It keeps me going,” Miley said. “At age 93, I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t do this. I’m still taping. I have five things going today.”
