Time flies when you\u2019re having fun.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 1, 1979, at age 24,\u00a0Chris Berman\u00a0began hosting the 2:30 a.m. edition of\u00a0SportsCenter<\/em>\u00a0on some brand-new cable network based in Bristol, CT. In 2016, he completed his 31st year as host of ESPN\u2019s\u00a0Sunday NFL Countdown<\/em>\u00a0and his 38th year at the sports channel now owned by The Walt Disney Co.<\/p>\n Berman started out when ESPN was untested and underwhelming and cable itself still seemed to be something of a frill to some consumers. ESPN was the newest team in a league that was far from established.<\/p>\n From the beginning, he played a large part in creating ESPN\u2019s tone. \u201cPeople made a connection with him,\u201d says\u00a0Norby Williamson, EVP, production, ESPN. \u201cHe, more than anyone who works here, is ESPN. He put ESPN on the map, and, through the decades, he became synonymous with what we are and who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n His wordplay with players\u2019 names (like Bert \u201cBe Home\u201d Blyleven), and his \u201cback-back-back-back-back\u201d home-run calls brought humor to ESPN and sports, which was played pretty straight at that point. Berman pulled off the balancing act between solid information and silly schtick delivered with a mock-urgent style. He also knows sports.<\/p>\n Early on, Technical Director\u00a0Chuck Pagano\u00a0(a member of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Class of 2013) heard Berman\u2019s voice and nicknamed him Boomer, shortened by others to just Boom. It fits.<\/p>\n Berman has been named National Sportscaster of the Year six times. He and shows he has been associated with have won 10 Emmy Awards. He has covered 35 Super Bowls. He hosted the\u00a0Sunday\u00a0NFL Countdown<\/em>show for an astonishing 31 years, 29 of them with former Denver Bronco\u00a0Tom Jackson. He jokes that only Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon had a longer tandem act on television.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was natural for Boom to be the face of the network because his persona is bigger than life,\u201d Jackson says before ticking off Berman\u2019s qualities: \u201cHis passion for the game. His hard work. His ability to look beyond the scenes to find out what\u2019s really happening. And his style, which is unique. And the way he elevated highlights.\u201d<\/p>\n Says ESPN President\u00a0John Skipper, \u201cChris is one of a kind, a singular talent who helped make ESPN a destination for sports fans. He wrote the book on how to deliver highlights; there\u2019s nobody who\u2019s ever been better. Whether he was hosting a studio show or calling a game, he brought joy to generations of fans because he made sports what it should be: fun. His place on our Mount Rushmore is assured.\u201d<\/p>\n Berman still has a featured role with ESPN\u2019s NFL coverage, including his \u201cBoomer\u2019s Vault\u201d feature, and he continued with play-by-play duties during the baseball playoffs on ESPN radio. But he\u2019ll admit he doesn\u2019t get around quite as much anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cI miss the people,\u201d he says. \u201cI miss the action. But I don\u2019t miss the grind \u2014 although I enjoyed the grind.\u201d<\/p>\n Watching games on television \u2014 as he did with the World Series \u2014 is a leisurely departure from the past. \u201cYou watch the game, see the post[game] interviews, then go get your toothbrush and go to bed. You\u2019re not looking for somewhere to get a hamburger at 2:00 in the morning,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m okay with that.\u201d<\/p>\n ESPN veterans speak with humor and pride about the place, especially remembering the old days, when everybody was rolling the dice.<\/p>\n Berman had been working as a weekend sportscaster at WVIT in nearby Hartford, when he interviewed for the job. \u201cI told them, \u2018Why don\u2019t you watch rather than me give you a tape? I\u2019m pretty raw, but let\u2019s see how it goes.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThey said, \u2018You could be our junior member. You could do the late show\u2019 [2:30 a.m. but 11:30 on the West Coast]. We\u2019ll pay you $16,500.\u2019 I said, \u2018When can I start? I already live here so you don\u2019t have to move me. See? I\u2019m a bargain.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Television hadn\u2019t really seen something like ESPN before; the people who worked there invented it. Berman was amazed. He was being offered a 30-minute nightly television show seen around the country.<\/p>\n \u201cSports anchors at TV stations wouldn\u2019t get 30 minutes a week!\u201d he exclaims. What a deal. The only problem was figuring out whether anybody wanted it. Programming on ESPN in the early days was esoteric, to say the least \u2014 or perhaps the most.<\/p>\n Berman says there was no secret sauce for ESPN when he started. Was there a plan? \u201cAt the very beginning? Not a lot. There were so few of us and so much to do,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThere was no one telling us what we should be trying to do. We were Lewis and Clark.\u201d<\/p>\n The punning around, he admits, was lingering adolescent silliness combined with a timeslot that seemed to encourage looseness. \u201cWe all did these things in college when we were drinking Perrier at the time,\u201d he says. \u201cI can tell you what the first one or two were. Either Frank Tanana Daiquiri or John Mayberry RFD. People said, What the \u2026? It came from those college days.\u201d<\/p>\n Viewers loved it. Apparently, players craved it. Berman says that, in the midst of the pennant race, Kansas City Royals star George Brett confronted Berman at the batting cage mock-complaining that the Yankees had more nicknames than the Royals did. When he found out Berman did not have a nickname himself, Brett took it upon himself to give him one. At the postgame press conference, Brett spotted Berman in the crowd of reporters and stopped, pointed at him, and shouted, \u201cLook, there is Ethel Merman Berman.\u201d<\/p>\n Professionally appalled by the nickname, Berman says he told the star, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding.\u201d He adds, though, that he rarely gave nicknames to stars who were likely headed to the Hall of Fame. \u201cHe was already George Brett. What am I gonna do? Wonder Brett? Whole Wheat Brett? Or Johnny Park Bench? Meh.\u201d (Brett is now a \u201cgreat friend,\u201d Berman adds.)<\/p>\n That little incident shows how seriously stars, teams and leagues pay attention and prosper from coverage on ESPN. Berman thinks that the network helped sports grow but that outsize growth was probably inevitable.<\/p>\n \u201cWe certainly were a part of what already was an explosion,\u201d he points out. \u201cWe were a different kind of igniter. We\u2019re kind of synonymous with the growth of cable. And cable begat the local cable sports. The thirst level just never got quenched.\u201d<\/p>\n Berman grew along with it and became an audience favorite.<\/p>\n Williamson, who joined ESPN in 1985 and, over the years, has served in producing roles for several programs hosted by Berman, says that one of his fondest yet most frustrating memories of Chris is his singular popularity with fans and his ability to connect with them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. Open was probably the worst because there is no buffer between you and the crowd and where you need to get to: you leave the office trailer to get [to someplace] a half mile away,\u201d he recalls. \u201cPeople just come up to him. He\u2019s genuine and having a great time signing things and talking. If you\u2019re the producer of the show, it drives you absolutely mad. But that\u2019s the connection to fans that made him the biggest star we\u2019ve had here.\u201d<\/p>\n That connection is largely because he\u2019s the same on-air and off. That\u2019s his mark. \u201cIt\u2019s still what I tell young people who want to start in the business,\u201d Berman says. \u201cDo it like you\u2019re talking to yourself. I don\u2019t mean really talking to yourself but what you would like to hear. It really is as simple as that: you and me and the fellas and the ladies in the bar. Not bar talk, but you\u2019re in a room talking. Just be natural.\u201d<\/p>\n These days, though, Berman possibly has to do a little acting. As he drifts into what he begrudgingly acknowledges is a less active role at ESPN, fate has made things tough. His wife of 34 years, Katherine, died in a car crash on May 9.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Hall of Fame event is going to be a wonderful day. Unfortunately, my wife won\u2019t be there,\u201d he said in a phone conversation on Oct. 26. \u201cYesterday would have been her birthday. It was a heavy day. I didn\u2019t talk to anyone. It\u2019s been five months. She shared it all with me and was waiting for my semiretirement. \u2026 Never got to live it and never lived to see her son get married three weeks later. A lot of things happened this year. Some good, some bad. She would have been proud of me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":739,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[20],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}