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Chris Berman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Born: | May 10, 1955 (age 51) Greenwich, Connecticut, USA |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Sportscaster |
| Website: | Chris Berman at ESPN |
Christopher (Boomer) James Berman (born May 10, 1955, in Greenwich, Connecticut) is a sportscaster, who anchors SportsCenter, Monday Night Countdown, Sunday NFL Countdown, Baseball Tonight, U.S. Open golf, and other programming on ESPN. He joined ESPN a month after its founding and has been with the network since. Berman also goes by his alter ego, The Swami when making prognostications on Sunday NFL Countdown. He is the new host of Monday Night Countdown, replacing previous host Stuart Scott.
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Berman joined ESPN in October 1979, a month after the cable channel debuted. There, Berman was a regular anchor on SportsCenter for the first 11 years at the network. Since 1980, Berman has hosted the network's coverage of the NFL Draft. Beginning in 1987, Berman hosted pregame and postgame highlight shows during the NFL season. He joined ABC Sports as the halftime host on Monday Night Football in 1996. Berman also is the chief play-by-play announcer for ESPN's Wednesday baseball telecasts. On September 6, 1995, Berman called Cal Ripken, Jr.'s record breaking 2,131st consecutive game. He also has announced hockey and golf.
Berman graduated from Hackley School and began his broadcasting career while attending Brown University, where his son and daughter also attend school. At Brown, he served as the sports director for the campus radio station, WBRU Radio and commentator for the school's basketball, football, ice hockey and baseball games.
After graduation in 1977, he hosted a news talk show and covered football and basketball games for WERI radio in Westerly, Rhode Island. In Naugatuck, Connecticut,after being hired by legendary programmer Joe McCoy(WCBS-FM), he co-hosted an early evening sports talk show with Bob Sagendorf entitled, Calling All Sports for WNVR radio. In 1979, Berman took his first television job as a weekend sports anchor for WVIT-TV, an NBC affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut.
Although Berman no longer regularly anchors SportsCenter, he still appears on special episodes, including the program's 20,000th and 25,000th shows and two "old school" editions on August 11 and August 12, 2004, with Greg Gumbel and George Grande, respectively.
Berman and his family practice Judaism and live in Cheshire, Connecticut.
On April 11, 2006, website Deadspin reprinted a story regarding You're with me, leather, a phrase that Chris Berman reportedly used to pick up a girl in a bar [1]. In the following weeks, Berman's reported use of the phrase became a running gag among Deadspin readers, and has been referenced on-air by Tony Kornheiser on his radio show, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC, Neil Everett on SportsCenter, Fox Sports Southwest, Dayn Perry of FOXSports.com, Damien Fahey on MTV's Total Request Live, on the NBC show Las Vegas, and in GQ magazine.
- National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association National Sportscaster of the Year (1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2001)
- American Sportscasters Association Sportscaster of the Year (1995 through 1997)
- The Cable Guide Best Cable Sportscaster 1987, 1988, 1990
- 1997 "TV's Most Fascinating Stars" from People
- 2001 Maxwell Football Club's Reds Bagnell Award
- Berman lent his voice to the videogame ESPN NFL 2K5 and hosts the pregame show. As a hidden feature, Berman appears as a free agent quarterback in season mode, and also has his own team in the game, the Bristol Swamis, named after Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN headquarters are located and his nickname, "the Swami".
- Berman appeared in the remake of The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler in 2005. He played himself as the play-by-play announcer of prison football game. Berman also appeared as himself in Little Big League in 1994, in Eddie in 1996 and in Kingpin in 1996 Necessary Roughness 1993 and in the 1995 Hootie and the Blowfish video for the single, "Only Wanna Be With You".
- Berman has cameoed on various episodes of Even Stevens as a SportsCenter anchor (Disney is the parent company of ESPN and the Disney Channel).