I watched a few tributes to Roone Arledge last night.

For more than a generation, Arledge was the guiding force in the way television covered the world of sports. He was the father of the Wide World of Sports program that dominated weekend programming on ABC for as long as I can remember. He was the father of Monday Night Football – vaulting Dandy Don, Howard and Frank into America's living rooms as household names.

What got me thinking, though, was the way two key phrases Arledge coined have become part of the American lexicon: The Thrill of Victory; The Agony of Defeat – the catch phrase for Wide World of Sports; and Up Close and Personal, a phrase that permeates Olympic coverage.

As a writer, you dream of delivering a phrase like that into the world vocabulary – and I'm not even beginning to consider lines from movies that have made their way into our language. I think of the people who can be identified with a simple phrase, and it runs quite a gamut.

Do you believe in miracles? Yes! – Al Michaels

Tell it like it is – Howard Cosell

Whoa Nellie – Keith Jackson

Only in America – Don King

That's just my opinion. I could be wrong – Dennis Miller

Elvis has left the building – David Letterman

He was spinnin' like the handle on the outhouse door – Jim Walden.

Okay, I cheated with that last one. Walden was the football coach at Washington State University and now does color commentary for the school's football game. He used that line during a recent game, referring to the way a receiver beat a cornerback.

But you know what? I don't aspire to that kind of remembrance. I just hope that what I write about an event captures, in some way, the magic of the event itself.

I have a few lines that I'm especially proud of.

There was the time I wrote about a girls basketball team from a tiny, tiny town in the armpit of the state came out of nowhere to win a state championship. They were the definition of a Cinderella story, and on deadline after they earned the championship, I came up with what I thought was the perfect lead:

``Welcome to the ball, Cinderella.''

And then there was the time, recently as a matter of fact, that I covered a professional boxing card that boasted a nationally televised main event between a former champion and an up-and-comer named John Walker. Unfortunately, John Walker was knocked out after two punches to his glass jaw in the opening seconds of the fight. My lead for the next day:

``Two shots and Johnny Walker was done.''

I don't rest on whatever laurels I may have garnered over the year. I keep remembering a comment a prospective editor made when I was interviewing for a job with his paper (I didn't get the job).

He called my writing pithy.

To this day, I pray he didn't lisp.

More soon.