FanHouse Chick Hearn

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If you lived in Los Angeles at anytime from the time the Lakers moved to L.A. in the early 1960's to the last of the Shaq/Kobe championships in 2002, you are probably quite familiar with Francis "Chick" Hearn. And even if you aren't from L.A., you might still be familiar with Chick, as he was probably the greatest play-by-play man in the history of basketball.

Chick was most known for his famous catch phrases known as "Chick-isms". The most famous of those Chick-isms is probably "slaaaam dunk" (yes, he invented the word "slam dunk").

That's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talking with legendary Lakers announcer Chick Hearn before a game against the Jazz on April 5, 1984. Of course, it wasn't just any old game, it was the game that Abdul-Jabbar broke Wilt Chamberlain's scoring record, and it happened at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, of all places, where the Jazz played 10 games that season as an alternate home court.

I love how the interview bounces just about everywhere, and it's interesting how Abdul-Jabbar advocates for college freshman being forced to sit out a year before playing NCAA ball -- the next high school kid who complains about not being able to jump directly to the NBA should be happy he wasn't born 30 years earlier.

Every time I say "basketball sucks on the radio," some old dude tells me that I wasn't reared on Chick Hearn. Then he tells me that hip-hop is the devil, and I reply "you've obviously never heard Chick Hearn's signature calls sampled in a goofy rap number." That's when we shake hands and start a Fortune 500 company.

Begrudging props to Skeets for the find. He has gained the upper hand in our YouTube rivalry, due largely to the fact that I'm now on Western time.

Not according to one writer. The Los Angeles Times' Christine Daniels lists the region's most popular sports teams and the Trojans come out third behind the Dodgers and the Lakers. Having lived in Los Angeles, I can definitely give the nod to the Dodgers here. Their appeal is universal and both Dodger Stadium and Vin Scully are public institutions.

UCLA's football program comes in fifth, behind UCLA basketball.

Interesting did-you-know: the late Lakers broadcast legend Chick Hearn used to be an announcer for USC football games. He eventually settled with the Lakers and became an institution of his own with all the quirky phrases he invented such as slam dunk and "this game's in the refrigerator: the door is closed, the lights are out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the Jell-O's jigglin"