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Dick Enberg

Richard Alan "Dick" Enberg (born January 9, 1935) is an American sportscaster. Enberg is one of the most prominent and respected play-by-play announcers in network television history, with a career spanning more than forty years. He is recognizable by his trademark exclamation, "Oh, my!"

Biography

Early life & education

Enberg was born in Mount Clemens, Michigan. He studied at Central Michigan University and Indiana University, earning master's and doctorate degrees in health sciences at the latter institution. While a student at Indiana, Enberg voiced the first radio broadcast of the Little 500, the bike racing event memorialized in the film Breaking Away. He was also the play-by-play announcer for IU football and basketball games. From 1961 to 1965 he was an assistant professor and baseball coach at California State University, Northridge, then known as San Fernando Valley State College.

Dick Enberg is also a member of Phi Sigma Kappa.

Early career

In the late 1960s, Enberg began a full-time sportscasting career, calling radio broadcasts for the California Angels of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League, and UCLA Bruins basketball. After every Angels victory, he would wrap up his broadcast with, "And the halo shines tonight." Four times Enberg was named California Sportscaster of the Year.

In the 1960s, Enberg announced boxing matches at L.A.'s Olympic Auditorium.

In 1968, Enberg was recommended by UCLA athletic director J. D. Morgan to be the national broadcaster for the TVS Television Network to cover the "Game of the Century" between the Houston Cougars and the UCLA Bruins.

In the early 1970s, Enberg hosted the syndicated television game show Sports Challenge, and co-produced the Emmy Award-winning sports-history series The Way It Was for PBS.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

In the 1970 opening conference game in Pauley Pavilion, Oregon went into a stall against the UCLA Bruins. Enberg had run out of statistics and began to fill his television broadcast with small talk. The movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had just been released, and Enberg was humming the tune to "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head", but did not know the words. Two nights later, at the Oregon State game, many students brought the lyrics to the song. Enberg promised that he would sing the song if UCLA won the conference championship. He sang the song following the final game of the season. The event was recorded in the Los Angeles Times and was later recounted in the book Pauley Pavilion: College Basketball's Showplace by David Smale. During the 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship broadcast, there was a short feature on the event.

NBC

In 1975, Enberg joined the NBC television network. For the next 25 years, he broadcast a plethora of sports and events for NBC, including the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the U.S. Open golf championship, college football, college basketball, the Wimbledon and French Open tennis tournaments, heavyweight boxing, Breeders' Cup horse racing, and the Olympic Games.

Enberg replaced Curt Gowdy in the play-by-play role for the NBC telecast of the Rose Bowl Game in 1980. He would be in the booth in Pasadena until ABC picked up the broadcast in 1988.

The NFL on NBC

While on The NFL on NBC, Enberg called eight Super Bowls (alongside the likes of Merlin Olsen, Bob Trumpy, Phil Simms and Paul Maguire), the last being Super Bowl XXXII in January 1998. Enberg also anchored NBC's coverage of Super Bowl XIII (that particular game was called by Curt Gowdy) in 1979. He also called three Canadian Football League games in 1982 during the NFL strike.

1980 Summer Olympics

Enberg, along with Bryant Gumbel, was scheduled to be the prime time host for NBC's coverage of the 1980 Summer Olympics from Moscow. After the United States opted to boycott the games, NBC decided to greatly reduce their Olympic broadcasting hours. Although Enberg and Gumbel now hosted a two hour wrap-up show each night, they were still given credit for being the anchors.

Major League Baseball on NBC

According to his autobiography, Oh My, Enberg was informed by NBC that he would become the lead play-by-play voice of Major League Baseball Game of the Week beginning with the 1982 World Series (where he shared the play-by-play duties with Joe Garagiola alongisde analyst Tony Kubek) and through subsequent regular seasons. He wrote that on his football trips, he would read every Sporting News to make sure he was current with all the baseball news and notes. Then he met with NBC executives in September 1982, and they informed him that Vin Scully was in negotiations to be their lead baseball play-by-play man (teaming with Joe Garagiola while Tony Kubek would team with Bob Costas) and would begin with the network in the spring of . Therefore, rather than throw him in randomnly for one World Series, Enberg wrote that he hosted the pregame/postgame shows while the team of Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek did the games.

According to the book, Enberg wasn't pleased about the decision (since he loved being the California Angels' radio and television voice in the 1970s and was eager to return to baseball) but the fact that NBC was bringing in Scully, arguably baseball's best announcer, was understandable. Enberg added that NBC also gave him a significant pay increase as a pseudo-apology for not coming through on the promise to make him the lead baseball play-by-play man. Enberg would go on to call some cable TV broadcasts for the Angels in , citing a desire to reconnect with the sport.

Wimbledon Championships

As NBC's longtime voice of the Wimbledon tennis championships (alongside Bud Collins and, later, John McEnroe), Enberg regularly concluded the network's coverage of the two-week event with thematically appropriate observations accompanied by a montage of video clips.

CBS

Enberg was hired by CBS in 2000, and now calls the network's NFL and college basketball action as well as the U.S. Open tennis tournament. For several years he also contributed to CBS coverage of The Masters and PGA Championship golf.

Another enduring element of Enberg's broadcasting legacy is his ability to provide warm and poignant reflections on the sporting events he covers. Enberg Essays, as they have come to be known, is a now-regular feature of CBS' coverage of college basketball's Final Four. Enberg continues to provide end-of-tournament commentaries on the three grand slam tennis events he covers.

Other appearances

Since 2004, Enberg has served as side commentator for ESPN2's coverage of the Wimbledon, French Open, and Australian Open tennis tournaments. In 2006, he began calling Thursday night and postseason NFL games for Westwood One radio. Also in 2006, Enberg began narrating a documentary style television series for Fox Sports Net called In Focus on FSN.

In addition to his career in sports broadcasting, Enberg hosted three game shows besides the aforementioned Sports Challenge: The Perfect Match in 1967, Baffle on NBC from 1973 through 1974, and Three for the Money on NBC in 1975. He also lent his voice to the animated CBS cartoon series Where's Huddles? in 1970 and the film Rollerball in 1975, and made appearances in the films Heaven Can Wait (1978), The Naked Gun (1988), and Mr. 3000 (2004).

He's also the voice of the announcer in the classic Mattel game Mattel Talking FootBall.

Career timeline

1961-1965: assistant professor and baseball coach at California State University, Northridge
1975-1981: NCAA Basketball on NBC Play-by-Play
1969-1981: California Angels Radio & TV Play-by-Play
?-1988: NFL on NBC Play-by-Play
1980: 1980 Summer Olympics Host
1980-1988: Rose Bowl Play-by-Play
1982: MLB on NBC Lead Play-by-Play
1983-?: MLB on NBC Studio Host
1985: California Angels Play-by-Play
1998-1999: Notre Dame Football on NBC
2000-present: NFL on CBS Play-by-Play (2000-2005 #2), (2006-(mid-2008 #3) and (October 4, 2008 #7)
2000-present: U.S. Open Tennis Play-by-Play
2001-?: The Masters Contributor
?-?: PGA Championship Contributor
2004-present: Wimbledon Play-by-Play for ESPN 2
2006-present: Westwood One Thursday night Play-by-Play
2006-present: In Focus on FSN narrator

Honors

Enberg has garnered many awards and honors over the years, including 13 Emmy Awards (as well as a Lifetime Achievement Emmy), nine National Sportscaster of the Year awards, the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Pete Rozelle Award, the NBA's Curt Gowdy Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Enberg is the only sportscaster thus far to win Emmys in three categories (broadcasting, writing, and producing), and in 1973 became the first U.S. sportscaster to visit the People's Republic of China.

Enberg was inducted into Central Michigan University's Athletics Hall of Fame in 1993. (source: cmuchippewas.com) The university named an academic center for him in 2007.

Enberg was raised in Armada, Michigan and was responsible for the naming of the Armada High School yearbook, the Regit (Tiger spelled backwards), a name it has to this day.

Indiana University awarded Enberg an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2002. He would be inducted into the Indiana University Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame in the fall of 2006.

Personal

Dick Enberg's surname is of Swedish origin. While starting out at KTLA-TV, Enberg was pressured into changing his name professionally to Dick Breen out of fear that Enberg would be seen as too ethnic sounding (i.e. Jewish).

Enberg is the father of actor Alexander Enberg and musician Andrew Enberg by former wife Jeri Taylor. He is currently married to Barbara Hedbring and has one son, Ted Enberg and two daughters, Nicole and Emily.

Enberg penned a one-man theatrical play titled (Al) McGuire after his former television broadcast partner and late friend. It debuted at Marquette University's Helfaer Theater in 2005. There may be plans to take the show on the road, as it drew positive reviews as an accurate portrayal of the eccentric coach. At the 2007 NCAA Final Four in Atlanta, Enberg presented three performances of McGuire at the Alliance Theater. Actor Cotter Smith portrays McGuire in the one-man show. Those attending the April 1 matinée included Hall of Famers coach Dean Smith (whom McGuire defeated in the 1977 NCAA Championship in Atlanta) and former UCLA All-American center Bill Walton.

References

Bibliography

Einhorn, Eddie; Ron Rapaport (2006). How March Became Madness: How the NCAA Tournament Became the Greatest Sporting Event in America. Chicago, Illinois: Triumph Books.
Smale, David (1989). Pauley Pavilion: College Basketball's Showplace. Manhattan, Kansas: Sports Memories Publishing / Jostens Publishing Company.