Thomas Hauser on Boxing by Hauser Thomas

Author:Hauser, Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610755474
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Marc Payton: The Director

The public-at-large doesn't know Marc Payton. That's a shame.

For three decades, Marc Payton has been one of the cornerstones of HBO Sports.

Payton directed his first boxing telecast for HBO on January 17, 1981 (Marvin Hagler vs. Fulgencio Obelmajias). Since then, he has personified the best of what viewers expect from the network.

Seth Abraham (the original architect of HBO's boxing program) states, “There are certain directors whose names are associated with greatness in a particular sport. Chet Forte with football; Frank Chirkanian with golf; Harry Coyle with baseball. That's how I think of Marc Payton and boxing. Marc has set the standard that people who direct boxing aspire to.”

Payton plans to retire at the end of this year. This is a good time to explore the legacy that he'll leave behind.

Marc Payton was born in Kansas City on January 19, 1948. His father was an engineer for Phillips Petroleum. By the time Marc was twelve, the family had moved ten times. Then they settled in Borger, an oil town in the Texas panhandle.

Payton graduated from Borger High School as class salutatorian in 1966 and enrolled at the University of Texas. On August 1, 1966, his second day at college, he walked out of the building after an orientation session and heard a boom.

“There's shooting,” someone told him. “Go back inside.”

Marc returned to the building, went up to the second floor, and looked out a window. Four bodies were lying on the ground below. A former United States Marine named Charles Whitman had shot and killed his wife and mother that morning. Then he'd gone to the Tower at the University of Texas, climbed to the observation deck, and opened fire with multiple weapons on passers-by below. By the time Whitman was shot to death by an Austin police officer, he'd killed seventeen people and wounded thirty-two more.

During his senior year of college, Payton took a job at night operating the switchboard for the NBC affiliate in Austin. When he graduated in 1971, the station hired him as a studio cameraman. Then his boss moved to an ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge, and Marc went with him to direct public-service announcements and work on the evening news; his first taste of live television.

Growing up, Payton had been a self-described “sports junkie.” To this day, he carries a heavy anchor around his neck. He has been a Houston Astros fan since the team came into existence in 1962 as the Colt .45s. And he'd always wanted to be involved with sports television. In 1973, he moved back to Texas to work for an independent television station in Houston that needed a director for commercials and local sports.

“There was another company in Houston at the time called Mobile Color,” Marc recalls. “They furnished trucks and crews for local sports events. After I'd been in Houston a while, I applied for a job with Mobile Color. Someone else got it. I was heartbroken and left town to work for a CBS affiliate in Shreveport.

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