18 questions with “The Big O”:

by Rob Bradford

While 57-year-old Glenn Ordway is quick to identify his limitations on the golf course, the strengths and nuances which have propelled him to become one of the most powerful people in the competitive Boston sports media market are best found by listening to the ebb and flow of his top-rated radio program, “The Big Show,” on Sports Radio WEEI-850.

Nicknamed “The Big O,” Ordway has gone from Lynn Classical High graduate, to fledgling radio personality on WESX in Salem, to the partner of legendary Boston Celtics Johnny Most during the team’s memorable run through the 1980s and early ‘90s, to finally his current post on WEEI’s drive-time staple.

Through all those experiences, Ordway has mastered the art of drawing in and keeping an audience, whether it’s through the entertaining and rapid fire banter which “The Big Show” has become known for, or the serious and sometimes volatile debate regarding the passionate and volatile Boston sports scene.

While Ordway admits to struggling to find the time for more than a few rounds of golf per year, he did free up a few moments to go 18 holes with North Shore Golf magazine when we caught up with him after Game 2 of the NBA finals and got his take on everything from the time Most lit himself on fire on air to riding in first class with Jack Nicholson.

1. How many times do you play a year?

If I’m lucky 10. If I’m not lucky it’s more like five. It’s never enough.

2. Do you have a favorite course?

Whatever one will invite me, I’m not picky. My hours don’t dictate being able to join a club.

3. What kind of clubs do you play?

Callaway.

4. When was the first time you played golf and how old were you?

Pembroke Country Club was the first time I played. I didn’t play golf until I was about 25 years old.

5. What do you usually shoot?

If I’m in the 90’s I feel pretty accomplished. I’m happy with my game if I avoid triple digits.

6. What is the strength of your game?

(Laughs) That’s a tough one. I would have to say my fat, wide, balanced body gives me the perfect fulcrum for a dynamite putt.

7. What’s your weakness?

The rest of my game – make that everything, including getting to the green.

8. What is your favorite charity tournament?

There’s a lot of good ones out there, but I would have to say the Jimmy Fund events are great because I just love everything that involves the Jimmy Fund.

9. What is your favorite local course?

Any one I get invited to.

10. Who do you especially like to interview on the air.

You interview so many different people. The best subjects to interview are those who have accomplished a lot in their life, can clearly articulate what they’ve done in their life, and those people who are really entertaining when talking about those experiences.

11. Can you tell us about the time when your former Celtics radio partner, Johnny Most, lit himself on fire during a broadcast?

The tape is still available. Johnny would always smoke cigarettes during the broadcast, and sometimes he would have two cigarettes. One of those cigarettes this time was underneath the table and unbeknownst to him the ashes had dropped down into his crotch area. Johnny was not the most fashionable individual and had a considerable amount of polyester in his wardrobe. The ashes dropped into his lap and his pants proceeded to melt and he had probably a good 10-12 inch hole.

12. How did you get it out?

I actually took some cold coffee and put the fire out. He was going to lose his entire pair of slacks.

13. What was Most like away from the microphone?

He was your typically interesting, old-school broadcaster. Broadcasting Celtics games took up a significant portion of his life, although he did have some other interests. He was a little insecure, as most of those great ones are. He always felt they were going to take him away from what he loved and lived for. Put it this way, they broke the mold with Johnny.

14. How would you compare this Celtics team with the 1986 world championship team?

It’s close. This team is better defensively, but that team, I think, was better offensively.

15. Do you think the broadcaster’s interaction with the team has changed since you broadcast games?

I was with the team on a regular basis. For me the players were of a similar age so there were more mutual interests. That was the problem I had in the older years when the players were much younger than me. That dynamic starts to change.

16. How old were you when you started?

I was 30 and ended up doing it for 13 and a half years. I started by jumping in at midseason. I was originally scheduled to do play-by-play in 1981, but then ended up doing color when Johnny (who was ailing) came back.

17. What was different about when the Celtics played the Lakers?

Everything. Those games had so much more meaning. That was it. It was the culmination of everything that the entire season had been building towards and you could feel it.

18. Can you relay a memorable story regarding the Lakers-Celtics rivalry?

We’re on the plane going back to Boston in 1985. We get on the airplane and we’re on a big jumbo jet and we have the whole first class to ourselves. There was only one seat we did not have, so we’re all wondering whose seat that was. So who gets on the plane, but Jack Nicholson. Oh my goodness!

The Celtics had just won and they start dumping all over him right from the beginning of the flight. So what movie pops up but “Terms of Endearment.” For two-plus hours it was like sitting in a movie theatre where people are constantly talking to the screen. Dennis Johnson was so vocal. DJ went at him non-stop. Nicholson was great about it, and I’ll tell you what, it was probably the most fun five or six-hour flight of my life because of all the talk back and forth. It was almost as if Jack was sitting in a front row seat with him harassing the players and the players harassing him, and it went on for the whole, entire flight.

Rob Bradford, a Beverly resident and an Essex native, covers the Red Sox for the Boston Herald. He recently co-authored “Deep Drive” with Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell. In his free time he has been known to carve up the fairways at Cape Ann GC on occasion.