Road to 1991 Perfection: Hearing Voices, Jock Center Met Seattle Radio Jock

The University of Washington introduced Spike O'Neill of rock 'n' roll radio fame to Husky center Ed Cunningham three decades ago, and the result was something pleasing to hear.

Don James conducted multiple interviews leading up to each University of Washington football game, but once a week the Husky coach sat down for what resembled a state of the union address.

In 1991, James took questions from a bunch of scruffy looking writers who occupied rows of chairs in front of him. Even scruffier radio personality Spike O'Neill, who was all earrings and things, joined them.

O'Neill, fairly new to Seattle and interested in sports, showed up to do a weekly radio bit afterward with Husky center Ed Cunningham, also a Northwest newcomer and interested in broadcasting. 

Spike grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, while Cunningham hailed from Alexandria, Virginia, about an hour apart. O'Neill was part of the popular Bob Rivers Show, Cunningham a starting offensive lineman. A university publicist put these guys together. 

"Ed and I just hit it off," said O'Neill, who grew up a Baltimore Colts fan in a family that had season tickets for years. "He was like my brother from a different mother."

This is another in series of vignettes about the UW 1991 national championship football team, supplementing the conversation for the pandemic-delayed season that begins soon. We're now in week 9, which brought a showdown with USC in Los Angeles.

The weekly meetings between the KISW-AM radio jock and the Husky football jock were so well received they increased from five minutes to 10 to an hour. These sessions went from being taped to a live broadcast. Aired every Friday, they touched on any number of subjects.

"Ed was a natural conversationalist, a broad thinker and interested in everything," O'Neill said. "Ed was so much more than your aw-shucks, I-help-the-team and do-what-I-can [kind of guy]."

This is how Cunningham became a national voice. You can hear his rich broadcast tones here in this video selfie that he provided for an earlier 1991 title-team memory

From this makeshift Seattle radio moment, Cunningham turned to college football broadcasting following an NFL career with the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals. 

He became a recognizable voice over the national airwaves for more than two decades on CBS, ABC and ESPN before walking away from the game in protest over what he felt was a negligent approach to football-related head injuries.

Cunningham lives in the Los Angeles area and is involved in the film industry, winning an academy award for his direction and production efforts for the film "The Undefeated." 

As for O'Neill, his golden tones serve him well as the lead singer for his band Spike and the Impalers during non-pandemic times, he continues to do podcasts with former cohort Bob Rivers and is chasing digital media and radio pursuits.

Spike, again during pandemic-exempt moments, continues to provide a pressbox voice calling out plays at UW football games. Cunningham got him really hooked on the local team, going back to 1991. 

"I'm a kid going to see the greatest college football I've seen played by anybody," O'Neill said. "That 1991 team was unbelievable talent in every aspect of the game."

Here's another clip from Spike speaking about that team. His voice is so good, you can't have too much video on O'Neill.

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