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Peyton Manning just won Super Bowl 50, his second championship and his 200th NFL win, the most of any quarterback — of course, he's retiring. I think I know why he didn't announce that after the Broncos beat the Panthers on Sunday, but I thought I'd ask somebody who knows him better: Harold Crump, a retired Hubbard Broadcasting exec now living in Nashville.
Crump and Manning are second cousins.
"He knows he should retire and yet he doesn't want to do it, so he's putting it off and putting it off. That's what I think," said Crump. "When you are going to retire from something you've been doing all these years, for which you've become worldwide known, it's a tough thing to finally decide, to say, 'I'm going to do it because I'm going to be 40 years old. I don't want to do it but I'm going to.' He's delaying publicly saying it.
"Did you see the article in today's USA Today on Eli and what he was thinking when he was watching the game?" Crump asked when I reached him by phone Tuesday. "It's such a good article; you get a take on what Eli's thinking."
Super calm Eli's even more of a poker face than Peyton. I totally agree with USA Today writer/broadcaster Martin Rogers, who doubted Eli's blank expression meant he was jealous that his big brother was equaling his own record for Super Bowl victories. Although it looked as if the Broncos were besting the Super Bowl favorites, Eli knows it's dangerous to celebrate until the clock reads 00:00.
While Crump is often back in the Twin Cities for Hubbard Broadcasting business, he fields a lot more Peyton questions in Nashville, because Manning played his college football at the University of Tennessee. "When they find out I've known him since he was a kid, they always want to talk," he said.
Crump said that because Peyton is the ultimate team player, he would never have announced plans to retire before the Super Bowl. "That's the kind of guy that he is," said Crump.
As for losing quarterback Cam Newton, who left the postgame news conference in a hooded pout, "That's the kind of guy he is," Crump repeated. "He's just a jerk and he was in college. He's a damn good athlete but that wasn't a surprise to me."
Overhearing our exuberant conversation Crump's wife, Leigh, came on the line to note, "Peyton certainly hasn't called us and announced his retirement."
Ron Magers signing off?
Ron Magers, a former KSTP-TV anchor, is reportedly set to retire from Chicago's top-rated ABC 7 newscast.
Esteemed Chicago media authority Robert Feder told me via Twitter his sources are "100 percent positive" Magers is stepping down, perhaps as soon as this summer. When Feder tried to confirm, Magers told him, "Rob, I've known you a long time, and you know I don't talk about my contract."
Magers left KSTP in 1981 for Chicago's WMAQ. After 16 years there he and Carol Marin famously quit to protest the station's hiring of Jerry Springer as a commentator. In 1998 Magers joined ABC 7.
Magers was at KSTP from 1974 to 1981, Channel 5's public affairs director Joe Johnston said Wednesday. One of his co-anchors was Cyndy Brucato. "Oh yes," she said. "I worked with him from '79 when I started there until 1981." She is now host of Greater MSP Business, which has its own YouTube channel, with videos edited by her photographer husband, Brian Halliday.
Brucato said she ran into Magers a couple of years ago when she was visiting her sister in Chicago and they attended a dance performance. "Sure enough in this great crowd, it must have been karma. I saw him and he saw me and we had a great chat."
The Magers and Brucato anchoring duo was the last time KSTP's newscast was tops in this market, she believes.
Magers is the older brother of Paul Magers, the former KARE 11 anchor now in Los Angeles. Brucato said, "I believe there was a brief period in which Paul was an intern at KSTP and Ron was the anchor."
Paul Magers was an intern. Huh.
C.J. can be reached at cj@startribune.com and seen on Fox 9's "Jason Show." E-mailers, please state a subject; "Hello" does not count. Attachments are not opened.
