To say Tim Van Galder merely was personable is like saying Tiger Woods has been just OK at golf.
"He was as charismatic and as magnetic a figure as St. Louis ever has had. " Lou Tevlin, who was executive sports producer at Channel 4 when they both worked there, said: "He was the Joe Namath of St. Louis."
"TVG," as he was known locally, turned a relatively nondescript run as a quarterback with the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals into a high-profile sportscasting career that began in 1973 and lasted nearly a decade and a half. And he remained the proverbial man about town for many years after that.
And what a life it was for Van Galder, who died of cancer on Wednesday at his home in St. Charles. He was 77.
He once roomed with Namath. He was "discovered" for his TV career by legendary broadcaster Regis Philbin. And he had a nearly five-decade friendship with iconic sportscaster Bob Costas.
"He was one of those guys who had a magnetic personality," said Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman Dan Dierdorf, who blocked for Van Galder in his brief NFL run, then succeeded him as the sports director at what now is KMOV (Channel 4) before ascending to a national sportscasting career. "He had the too-cool-for-school vibe. He was very popular on the team and fun to be around, then had a great career on TV."
Legendary Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Costas launched his iconic national sportscasting career at KMOX (1120 AM) about the same time Van Galder began at Channel 4. The stations were in the same building, overlooking the downtown riverfront near the arch, and they became pals though Costas is about eight years younger.
"We were very good friends," Costas said. "We played a lot of golf together in '90s and into the early 2000s."
They remained friends after Costas left town and he said the news of Van Galder's passing, though not unexpected, "hit me hard."
There were a lot of good times to remember, including how Van Galder would conclude meetings of the 1-2-3 Club, a group of people from wide-ranging backgrounds tied to St. Louis athletics, with a joke.
"It always was a new one," Costas said. "He was a great joke teller. He knew how to set it up, he'd have great inflections."
And TVG had his own acronym for Costas " YBC, as in Young Bob Costas. That's what legendary KMOX broadcaster Jack Carney called Costas when he was a pup at the station, and Van Galder ran with its shortened version for decades.
"I can't remember him ever calling me anything but YBC," Costas said.
Van Galder's carefree ways burst through on the air, where he'd be seen without a tie and sometimes sit or lean against the desk instead of sit behind it.
"Too many people when they try to do TV or radio try to be somebody they are not," Dierdorf said. "When he was at Channel 4, he was being TVG."
Among the lessons Tevlin said he learned from Van Galder: "Give it all you got professionally but when you leave work, you leave it behind and live life. Man, did TVG ever live life!"
Those two adhered to that motto, often hitting the town after work.
"TVG entered a room and quickly owned it with his authenticity and smile," Tevlin recalled. "A ladies man, larger than life personality."
That could lead to some interesting situations.
"Former Cardinals outfielder Jim Edmonds reminded me a bit of TVG," Tevlin said. "Some guys didn't like him " mostly because their girlfriends/wives did like TVG. And secretly, guys wanted to be like TVG. Outstanding athlete in everything he did, charming, good looking and had a really cool job on TV."
Big-name influences
After Van Galder was cut by the Cardinals following the 1972 season, he had a couple brief shots in the NFL but never played again. One was with the New York Jets because legendary QB Namath and others on the depth chart were injured. So TVG arrived as roster insurance for the final three weeks of the season.
Renowned playboy Namath quickly warmed to the free-spirited newcomer, and invited Van Galder to move in with him for the his brief stay.
"I was married at the time, so I didn't do too much carousing with him," Van Galder once told the Post-Dispatch. "But what a place he had " a pool table, spiral staircase, the works."
Van Galder expounded on his Namath experience in an interview he did with Mike Green of Iowa State University's athletics department in 2015, when TVG was inducted into its Hall of Fame for his football and baseball exploits.
"My wife came out to visit me for a few days," Van Galder told Green. " I asked him where a good spot we could get a bite to eat. He said, "Oh, you got to go to this great place on Lexington." I said, ""
Van Galder didn't bother to invite Namath to accompany them, thinking "Broadway Joe" had other plans. That led to an memorable moment Van Galder described in that interview.
Namath "says, "Do you think it would be OK if I came, too" I said, "Of course!" He says, "Great, I'll get a date."
"The next part was just like the movies. He pulls out this little black book and he starts paging through it. He picks up the phone and calls a girl, and I can only hear his end of the conversation. But I remember hearing him say, "Yeah, I know I haven't talked to you in six months." We all went out on a double date and had a great time."
Van Galder's television run was sparked by Philbin, said longtime TVG friend Tevlin. In the early '70s, Philbin's career had not blossomed into the national prominence it eventually reached, and he'd fly from Los Angeles to St. Louis once a month to record episodes of a variety show that Channel 4 aired late Saturday nights.
Tevlin said Philbin and Van Galder once ended up in the same restaurant in St. Louis and quickly hit it off. Philbin was friends with station management (it was KMOX-TV then), which was the reason he had the job. Tevlin said Philbin pushed for Van Galder to be hired, telling the powers that be that "Timmy had the 'it' factor " and boy did he have a lot of it!"
Van Galder was on the air a short time later. Philbin " a big sports fan " came on with him on occasion. But it was not an easy transition for a guy who had no formal training in the broadcast business.
"There were a lot of blunders, big bad blunders," Van Galder said in 1981.
Included were calling Paavo Nurmi, the famed distance runner from Finland known as "The Flying Finn," "The Flying Nun." Other times, words more suitable for a football field than a newscast slipped through.
"You could fill a book with them," Van Galder once said of his mistakes. "No, make that two books."
But he worked hard and got much better and his broadcast career lasted nearly two decades, including time on sports-talk radio. He also was in the home siding business and owned a lounge and managed another. He really enjoyed those latter positions.
"I didn't pay myself worth a damn, but I spent next to nothing in the bars," he once told the Post-Dispatch. "It's a hell of a life if you're single, staying there till late at night, sleeping in and playing golf in the daytime."
In his spare time he was a top-notch local golfer.
 

On the field
Van Galder was selected by the Cardinals in the sixth round of the 1966 draft and banged around on the taxi squad and in the Army before finally getting his chance to play, and start, in 1972.
His first pass was memorable " it should have been a 61-yard TD hookup with Hall of Fame tight end Jackie Smith, who was behind the Baltimore Colts' defense and in stride with the throw. But the perfectly placed ball bounced off his hands, which were at chest level.
"I told him I didn't know which end of the ball to try to catch, you throw so wobbly," Smith jokingly said this week.
They later hooked up on a 71-yard strike that helped the Big Red to a 10-3 victory on the road. However, Van Galder made just four more NFL appearances, all that season. But his off-field life, as ebullient as it was, was just taking shape.
"I was always kind of a ham," he once told the Post-Dispatch. "When I played for the Cardinals, I had to be; I didn't play very much."
Van Galder's teammates enjoyed his company. The Big Red in those days held training camp just north of Chicago, and Smith said some of the boys would venture in to the big city for a few cold ones in their free time "but made sure we got back by curfew."
Van Galder, who had a Corvette, would push the limits.
"More than once TVG came screeching in at the 11th hour," Smith said. "He was always a playboy, but a very dedicated player. He was an interesting character, that's for sure. Everybody liked him."
So much so that a group of his teammates remained close all these years later.
"A lot of us spent the day (he died) talking about him," Smith said. "He was a great part of our lives. He handled himself very well, even when he was weak toward the end. He still was as much like TVG as he ever was."
Final arrangements for Van Galder, who had been single for many years and had no children, are pending. They are being handled in part by his nephew.
How did TVG perceive himself" He reflected in a 1991 interview with the Post-Dispatch.
"I'm more than 20 years out of college and I haven't had to grow up yet," he said. "What's that saying, 'Growing up is optional, growing old is mandatory.' Well, that's me."
It's an outlook he was able to maintain for a lifetime, a rollicking life summed up succinctly by his buddy Costas.
"He was fun and funny," Costas said. "He wasn't one of the greatest players, but he was one of the greatest guys."
........................................................................................................
Highlights of Van Galder's first NFL game, Sept. 17, 1972 in Baltimore:

 

 

 
Return Home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lou Tevlin

is a registered & certified Major League Baseball Player-Agent and Founder of Integrity Sports _LLC, a firm founded in St. Louis and now based in talent rich Atlanta, Georgia.

Lou has the distinction of perhaps being the only MLB Player-Agent recruited to be a Sports Agent by All-Star MLB Players. 

First making a National name for himself in the sports business world as a journalist for CBS-TV & FOX TV networks while breaking International Exclusives, Lou Tevlin built a reputation held in such high regard by professional athletes & front office executives, the two, often adversarial sides of the sports business world each regularly trusted Lou with sensitive information from the highest levels.