Dec. 7, 1963: Video Instant Replay Comes to TV

On December 7, 1963, the first use of instant replay machine occurred in the Army Navy game It was headed up by a CBS production crew led by Tony Verna. From the article:

"Dec. 7, 1963: Video Instant Replay Comes to TV

1963: The college football game between Army and Navy marks the first use of video instant replay during a sports telecast. Many fans find it confusing.

The annual matchup between these two military service academies always garners plenty of national attention, but the '63 game carried added significance after the Nov. 22 assassination of President John F. Kennedy delayed the game and hundreds of other college football contests around the country. (Kennedy himself had been slated to attend the game.)

With the game postponed a week to Dec. 7, CBS decided to use it as a trial for the new videotape instant-replay system. Tony Verna, a 29-year-old TV producer, was at the helm of the production. Having already made his mark directing the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Verna felt he was up to the job.

Except things didn't exactly go as planned. Technical issues meant that the only time Verna's crew was able to successfully get a play rebroadcast over the air while the game was underway was at the end, when Army scored a touchdown to cut the deficit to six points.

As Michael Connelly describes it in his book The President's Team: The 1963 Army-Navy Game and the Assassination of JFK, millions of people watching at home were instantly beside themselves with bewilderment.

People watching the game on television were confused. After [Army quarterback Rollie] Stichweh rolled right and plunged into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown, they saw him do exactly the same thing again. Immediately, the CBS phone lines were inundated with phone calls to confirm whether Army had scored again.

Alas, Army had not scored again, broadcaster Lindsey Nelson assured the viewers, and the game ended with Navy knocking off Army, 21-15, sending the 102,000 people in attendance into jubilation or gloom. Navy quarterback Roger Staubach went on to win the Heisman Trophy as college football's best player, before enjoying a Hall of Fame career with the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.

Instant replay has since been refined with slo-mo and freeze frame, and gone on to be embraced for officiation in many professional sports. The NFL has official reviews and gives each coach multiple "challenges," so that officials can go stand in an isolated, covered area and look at multiple camera angles before correcting or confirming an on-field call.

The NHL relies on a central nerve center in Toronto when goals are called into question. (Hockey actually had an earlier instant replay, though it wasn't on videotape: An unauthorized experiment in 1950 used a rush-processed kinescope film to replay a hockey goal on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada in 1950.)

Major League Baseball, however, only reviews fair-or-foul and inside-the-park-or out calls on home runs. It won't consider using replay, even in the pursuit of perfection.

But whenever those sports come around, they can point back to an epic upset in 1963, when a nation was in mourning and needed something to cheer about."