RIP to Jacksonville legend David Lamm, and his fabulous twin, "Blabbermouth" | Goodbread
In 1984, after he'd left a role as sports columnist for the Florida Times-Union, David Lamm was just a year into a venture in local television with his weekly program "Lamm at Large" on WTLV-12. Airing late Sunday nights, it became popular as a hyper-local sports TV magazine, one of the first of its kind in Jacksonville, if not the very first.
It covered everything from JU basketball to The Players Championship to the Gator Bowl. In the fall, Lamm, who died Friday at 78, knew Jacksonville's football passion well enough, nine years before the Jaguars were born, to include a heavy dose of Gators and Seminoles. But the show peaked in the spring for me, a 13-year-old, self-professed superfan of the USFL's Jacksonville Bulls, who filled the old Gator Bowl with a spring schedule in 1984 and '85.
That's when Blabbermouth Lamm was at his best.
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For the show's final segment, Lamm would change out of his suit and into a frumpy T-shirt during his last commercial break, don a hat and big sunglasses, smear black shoe polish around his mouth for a fake goatee, and transform into his alter-ego, Blabbermouth Lamm. David's recklessly talkative twin brother, Blabbermouth pretended to be David's cameraman. He'd peer out from behind a large TV camera, look in the direction of the live camera, and motion viewers with his finger to come closer.
"Pssst! Come here. I've got some scoop for you," he'd say in a hushed tone.
If you were a Bulls fan, you leaned closer from the couch in your home.
He'd look around as if he'd get in trouble if anyone saw him blabbing, especially his "brother" David, whom he chided for refusing to air any gossip on "Lamm at Large."
Then, with a slight change in his voice and cadence, Lamm would spill some serious tea on the inner-happenings with the Bulls, who were massively popular and regularly drew home crowds of 50,000 or more. Locker room drama. Injury scoop. Which players had attitude problems. Even shocking, unreported stories from the team's road trips. Then he'd motion for his viewers to scurry away before David caught him whispering salacious hearsay and rumor.
"Now get out of here before he sees us," he'd say. "Come back and see me next week. I'll have a little more dirt."
In the pre-cell phone, pre-internet era, it was pure genius.
The Times-Union and local TV broke Jacksonville sports news competitively on a daily basis, yet here was Lamm on a weekly show, incredibly well-sourced from his days at the Times-Union, airing the juiciest of gossip that wasn't always fit to print. Some years later, Lamm told me the Bulls' front office let him know, in no uncertain terms, that they didn't like him airing their dirtiest laundry.
"I'll talk to Blabbermouth," he said he told them, "but he doesn't listen to me."
Putting a finger on the pinnacle of Lamm's four-decade run as a Jacksonville sports media personality is an eye-of-the-beholder exercise. At the outset of his career, he was a bombastic and prolific T-U columnist from 1977-1983, and his fearless criticism and silver-tongued musings were foundational for my interest in becoming a sports writer as a child. He would eventually be a help to me as I began sports writing at the Times-Union myself; not a mentor, but a trusted resource for sure.
His longest run in a media medium was in local sports radio, at which he thrived as well. In September, 2001, he took to the airwaves with a stunning upset prediction that an unranked North Carolina football team would knock off sixth-ranked Florida State. Local Seminole fans pilloried him for it in the days leading up to the game. The Tar Heels had never beaten FSU in school history. The 'Noles entered the game with an incredible 71-2 ACC record since joining the league in 1992.
Final score: UNC 41, FSU 9.
The radio was on fire the entire following week, with FSU fans hating on Lamm, calling him a homer (he attended UNC) and ripping the pick as a lucky guess. Gator fans checked in to toast him as clairvoyant while bathing in the 'Nole misery.
Lamm beamed for the stirred pot.
Like nobody else.
Except for his evil twin, Blabbermouth.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread worked for the Florida Times-Union for 13 years during David Lamm's media career. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: RIP David Lamm, and his fabulous twin, "Blabbermouth"
