Sid Collins (broadcaster)

For the golfer, see Sid Collins Jr.

Sid Collins (born Sidney Cahn Jr.) (July 17, 1922 – May 2, 1977) was an American broadcaster best known as the radio voice of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network from 1952–1976. Collins coined the phrase describing the annual May motorsports event as "the greatest spectacle in racing".

Sid Collins exhibit at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum

Background

Born into a Jewish family that owned a neighborhood store in Indianapolis, Indiana, Cahn changed his professional name to Collins for fear of antisemitism and discrimination in his chosen field of broadcasting.

Announcing

Collins worked for WIBC in Indianapolis. One year after he started at the 50,000-watt station, he became the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) track announcer for the south turn. He became a radio announcer for the track after Bill Slater became ill. He was named the chief announcer in 1952. That year he introduced his "full coverage concept", which replaced a five-minute rundown each hour. He sent letters to all of the radio stations on their network, but only 26 stations participated. The next year 110 stations participated and the number grew until it became 1,200 by 1980.

With live television coverage of the race prohibited until 1986, Collins' radio coverage drew a large audience every year, and his announcing as the "voice of the 500" became synonymous with the race itself. By 1976, it was estimated that the radio broadcast reached 100 million listeners on 1,200 stations worldwide. He told the world the deaths, accidents, incidents, and crashes during the race. Collins received over 30,000 letters asking for a copy of the eulogy that he gave about Eddie Sachs after Sachs died in a crash on the second lap of the 1964 Indianapolis 500.

You heard the announcement from the public address system. There's not a sound. Men are taking off their hats. People are weeping, over three hundred thousand fans, here; not moving; disbelieving. Some men try to conquer life in a number of ways. These days of our outer space attempts, some men try to conquer the universe. Race drivers are courageous men who try to conquer life and death, and they calculate their risks. And in our talking with them over the years, I think we know their inner thoughts in regards to racing: they take it as part of living. No one is moving on the race track. They're standing silently. A race driver who leaves this earth mentally, when he straps himself into the cockpit, to try what for to him is the biggest conquest he can make, is aware of the odds, and Eddie Sachs played the odds. He was serious and frivolous. He was fun. He was a wonderful gentleman. He took much needling and he gave much needling. And just as the astronauts do perhaps, these boys on the race track ask no quarter and they give none. If they succeed they're a hero, and if they fail, they tried. And it was Eddie's desire, I'm sure, and will to try with everything he had, which he always did. So the only healthy way perhaps we can approach the tragedy of the loss of a friend like Eddie Sachs is to know that he would have wanted us to face it, as he did: as it has happened, not as we wish it would have happened. It is God's will, I'm sure, and we must accept that. We're all speeding towards death at the rate of sixty minutes every hour. The only difference is that we don't know how to speed faster, and Eddie Sachs did. So as since death has a thousand or more doors, Eddie Sachs exits this earth in a race car. And knowing Eddie, I assume that's the way he would have wanted it...

...Byron said 'who the gods love, die young'. Eddie was 37. To his widow Nance we extend our extreme sympathy and regret. And to his two children. This boy won the pole here in 1961 and 1962 [sic], and was a proud race driver. Well, as we do at Indianapolis and in racing: as the World Champion Jimmy Clark I'm sure would agree, as he's raced all over the world: the race continues. Unfortunately today, without Eddie Sachs. And we'll be restarting it in just a few moments.

Collins also anchored TVS Television Network auto racing from Trenton, Milwaukee, Langhorne, Castle Rock, and Colorado for two years. He hosted national TV coverage of the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade with Garry Moore, Steve Allen, and Bob Barker for Hughes Sports Network. He was the subject of stories in Hot Rod magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.

Collins always signed off by quoting a serious thought or some poetry. His sign-off at the conclusion of the 1976 Indianapolis 500 was a poignant example:

"So now, the 60th running of the 500 here is now history. Since 1911, the hypnotic effect of speed upon driver and spectator alike is never dim. The run from the green flag to the checkered and on to Victory Lane here is a pursuit that only one man in the world can accomplish once a year. Today, once again, Johnny Rutherford etched his name and his achievement upon the granite of time. He reigns supreme as the champion of the sport of auto racing this day and forever more. The massive crowd of more than 350,000 has threaded its way towards the exit gates as their eyes have taken a final sweep over the track before departing. For some, this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Others will come back, but in every case, it's always difficult to relinquish one's grasp on the pulsating emotion that is the 500. And at this microphone, we share that reaction of having to say goodbye to you across the many miles that separate us. But, another icy Indiana winter will come and go, and before we know it, springtime returns. It will be May, and the roar of engines will once again breathe life into the lazy Hoosier sky and bring us back together. God willing, I'll be here to greet you for this annual reunion through our mutual love of auto racing and the Indianapolis 500.

And now this final thought for our winner. Enthusiasm with wisdom will carry a man further than any amount of intellect without it. The men who have most-powerfully influenced the world have not been so much men of genius, as they have been men of strong conviction with an enduring capacity for work coupled with enthusiasm and determination. Johnny Rutherford showed these qualities today in becoming victorious over the Indianapolis 500.

So until next May, this is Sid Collins, the Voice of the 500, wishing you good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending upon where in the world you are right now. We're here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the Crossroads of America. Goodbye."

Death

Collins began suffering muscle spasms and pain in his thighs in February 1975. He also underwent foot surgery in 1975. After tests, Collins was diagnosed with a disc pressing against his spine and underwent surgery that involved cutting through his throat. His larynx was not harmed and he returned to broadcasting for the 1976 Indianapolis 500. Collins navigated the Speedway in 1976 with the use of a golf cart and a cane.

In April 1977, Collins was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease. After learning he had the incurable progressive paralyzing disease, Collins confided to friend and Indianapolis 500 anchor successor Paul Page that he was planning to take his own life. Collins committed suicide on May 2, 1977. He was 54. Collins had been scheduled to announce his 30th Indianapolis 500 on May 29.

Collins left an 11-minute audio tape as a suicide note that he intended to be aired during the broadcast of the 1977 Indianapolis 500. In the first eight minutes, he described his two year battle against the progression of ALS and the pain it brought him. He spoke of how proud he was to have been the Voice of the 500. In the final three minutes of the recording, Collins read from the Bible, the entire third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes, which states "there is a time for everything... a time to be born and a time to die," before ending his message, "My time has come."

Paul Page, Collins' successor as The Voice of the 500, declined to air the tape he left. "It felt very personal to me." "I'm sure his purpose was to prove (to his listeners) that he had done everything he could. But I don't think anyone questioned Sid's personal level of courage. If anything, at the funeral home, it was more like 'Thank God he is at rest.' Because he was totally tormented by this (disease)."

Awards

Collins received nine American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association awards as the best auto racing broadcaster in the nation. He was cited by the Indiana University radio/TV school as an outstanding graduate and was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in 1979. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2011.