Are you ready for some Hank lore?

Phil Hagen

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 10:17 a.m.

Hank Williams Jr. wasn't always ready for some football.

It was the late '80s, and ABC was carrying the broadcast ball for the fledgling USFL. The network's sports president, George Greenberg, drew up a plan to score an audience: Have Williams turn his "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" hit into the league's TV anthem.

Williams' manager and fellow diehard football fan, Merle Kilgore, recalls his reaction: "USFL? What's that?"

After running the request by Williams anyway, Kilgore phoned back to gently break the news to Greenberg.

"I told him, 'Hank said he didn't want his song to go down in the toilet with that league. It ain't gonna make it.' "

Obviously there were no hard feelings, as Greenberg called back a couple of years later from the ABC war room with another pitch: Would Hank do it for "Monday Night Football"?

" 'Let me tell you something, George," Kilgore says he told him. "You go back to that table and tell 'em I'm waiting by my phone, 'cause he will rewrite that song for Monday Night Football.' "

Eight years later, "Are you ready for some football?" is the weekly fall battle cry heard in millions of households across the nation. That little intro number also has earned Williams four Emmys and kept his old country career in the public eye during a time when radio stations have kept "new country" in the public ear.

But what's really impressive to Kilgore -- a legend in his own right for penning such songs as "Ring of Fire" and "Wolverton Mountain" -- is the big-league respect Williams gets from the gig.

"We have the team (the Oilers) in Nashville now," Kilgore says, "and I was introduced to one of the players in a hotel lobby. He said, 'Mr. Kilgore, I want to tell you about your man. You know he's real. That's why he's Mr. Monday Night Football. Because we know he is football.' "

Besides watching games religiously every week -- "he'd rather watch the NFL on Sunday afternoons than breathe," says his publicist, Kathy Gangwisch -- Williams is friends with several pro players. Kansas City Chiefs star Derrick Thomas, for example, has been in a couple of Williams' music videos and even shows up on stage now and then.

With that kind of defense behind him, no wonder ABC was forced to punt in 1993 when it tried to replace Williams with various recording artists.

"That was horrrrrible!" Kilgore roars. "It just didn't happen. They used Amy Grant -- whom I love dearly. But did you see Amy and her children on 'Monday Night Football'!"

Midway through the season, there was a big meeting at ABC, led by then-sports chief Dennis Swanson.

"Roger Staubach (a Hall of Fame quarterback) was at this meeting," Kilgore says. "And Roger, a very quiet gentleman, got up and said, 'Aaa, Dennis, who in the hell took Hank Williams Jr. off of Monday Night Football?' They said Dennis Swanson's face turned blood red. He said, 'It's OK, it's OK. We're talking to Merle.'

"He called me immediately and said let's work this out. We'll shoot in Nashville and get him on the air by Dec. 12. We will apologize to everybody and tell them it is our fault. We can work out a deal, can't we, Merle?' "

Kilgore has made all the right moves for Williams since taking over as manager in 1986, when Junior had finally escaped his famous father's shadow. The longtime Hank Sr. clone had earned fame from a string of hits, including "Family Tradition" and "A Country Boy Can Survive," and a made-for-TV movie ("Living Proof," in which Kilgore played himself) that told his tumultuous life story.

But he also had earned an outlaw reputation and, not coincidently, zero awards.

Moments after Williams convinced Kilgore, his longtime opening act and friend, to be his new manager, he issued Job No. 1: "I've got hit records but no awards. Get me some awards."

"I said, 'Hmmmm, this is gonna be tough,' " Kilgore recalls. "Hank said, 'Whaddya think I'm paying ya big bucks for?'

"I had dinner with a lobbiest and I told him my problem. 'Merle, it sounds to me like getting an award from the CMA or the Academy of Country Music is like running for office.' I said, 'Yeah, because if they don't vote, you don't get the awards.' He said I have got to do like politicians: go out and stump, shake hands and ask for votes."

So he started a campaign in Nashville. "I used every tactic I could think of to get votes. ... I ran into a lot of people who said, 'Aw, screw Hank Williams Jr. I don't like his attitude.' I said, 'Well, don't you like me?' 'Yeah, Merle, you and I been friends for years.' And I said, 'Hell, vote for me. A vote for Hank is a vote for me to keep my job.' "

Williams ended up with five Entertainer of the Year awards -- two from the Country Music Association and and three from the Academy of Country Music. In 1990, he also collected a Grammy for a duet with his late dad, "There's a Tear in My Beer."

Kilgore went a step beyond what he expected when, that same year, the CMA surprised him with its Manager of the Year honor. Who could argue with that choice, considering the job description ...

"It's like sitting on a stove all the time, wondering when it's going to boil over," Kilgore says. "You have to watch the pot all the time."

The pot really got stirred with Kilgore's next honor: CMA board member -- an elite post to which he was recently re-elected.

"I remember I said to Hank, 'Do you believe I just got elected to the CMA board?' And Hank said, 'What! CMA! You're now the establishment!' I said, 'Well, you paid me to get the establishment to get you awards.' "

With all those awards under Williams' belt, plus a new baby boy and ranches in three states to tend to, the tough part now for Kilgore might be to keep his rowdy friend from settling down. But at 48, "Hank's not close to retiring," Kilgore says. "We've got a few more surprises."

Could one involve 24-year-old Hank Williams III, who's getting ready to release his first album?

"They'll maybe tour someday, but not now," Kilgore says. "Hank says he's got to be in those trenches himself. He's got to ride those buses and eat in those truck stops. He's got to get that grease on him."

Hey, maybe he needs a veteran manager to show the kid the ropes, land him a few awards, perhaps even secure a steady "Monday Night" job.

"I'm gonna tell you something," Kilgore says. "No man living can manage two Hanks. No man."