Marty Glickman was one of the most distinguished of alums from my alma mater, Syracuse University and that’s saying a lot.
S.U. has had scores of graduates from various fields of endeavor. It would take too much time to even begin to numerate and you, the reader knows full well how to see many there are.
But Glickman, unlike most of today’s Syracuse graduates who attend the famed Newhouse School of Communications to become sports broadcasters and other media fields, was a star athlete who became a legendary sports announcer later.
Marty was a track and field and football star for the Orange, who was a member of the U.S. team at the 1936 Summer Olympic Games held in Berlin.
In what was without question, his greatest disappointment, was his removal at the last minute from the 400-meter relay team and replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe.
Glickman was taken off the team along with fellow Jewish teammate, Sam Stoller in what as viewed an American effort not to embarrass German Chancellor Adolph Hitler.
Owens and Metcalfe helped the American team win the gold medal with ease, and Jesse Owens, like Metcalfe, and African American, wound up winning four Gold Medals.
Moving ahead, Marty Glickman ultimately established himself as one of the storied radio sports announcers, particularly, in New York, where he was the voice of the NBA New York Knicks, all of college basketball played in the Metropolitan area and the New York Giants, and later, the New York Jets of the NFL.
He did television work as well doing NFL games for NBC and was monumental in announcing and producing New York high school football and basketball games.
And there was more.
As a youngster growing up in the borough of Queens in the City, I became enamored along with so many of my colleagues in the business, listening to virtually every contest with Marty Glickman at the mike.
Enamored may not be the best definition.
Obsessed is more accurate.
Glickman would set the scene better than anyone I ever heard, describing, in detail, the teams’ uniforms no matter what sport he was doing. If it were a Giants game, he would reveal the Giants in their “royal blue jerseys with white numerals and silver pants trimmed with a red and blue. And royal blue helmets with a red stripe. The Steelers in their road white jerseys, with black numbers, brilliant gold pants and black helmets trimmed in gold.”
I could not get enough of those uniform descriptions and the way he precisely and accurately let the listener know exactly where the ball was on the basketball court or on the gridiron.
You could see it all on the radio when Marty Glickman was at the microphone.
All of this is a preamble to one of the blessed nights I’ve experienced.
Syracuse University’s Newhouse School presented me with with the Marty Glickman Award for Leadership in Sports Media.
The award had been given to many of the giants of sports broadcasting past and present who attended S.U.
Marv Albert, who was Glickman’s protege, and in my view, not only a friend, but the finest NBA commentator of all time, Bob Costas, Sean McDonough, Mike Tirico, Ian Eagle, Beth Mowins, and premier sports agent Sandy Montag have all won the Glickman award.
I was given the honor this year, and it was conducted via Zoom Webinar.
It was all arranged by Olivia Kate Stomski, of the Newhouse School’s Digital Journalism wing, and it began with a few words from the Dean of the Newhouse School of Communications, Mark Lodato, whom I have had a good discussion in the past on the state of journalism.
Due to on-air assignments by most of the previous winners, the presentation could not be done with the others in person.
The production team from Newhouse did a brilliant job in the presentation, which included McDonough, Tirico, Eagle and Montag on the one-hour program.
Matt Millen, my original NFL partner at Fox Sports, contributed remarks before the actual introduction began.
Millen, has meant a great deal to me in ways that transcend simply the role of partner in the television booth.
Matt, to me, is a living miracle, having received a desperately needed heart transplant, with time running out on his opportunity.
It was Christmas Eve, 2018, after months of waiting in a New Jersey hospital, waiting and hoping, that Matt finally got the word that a heart donor had been found.
We worked eight wonderful years together at the start of Fox Sports NFL experience and we represented the No. 2 announce team behind the great Pat Summerall and John Madden.
We did our job and we had fun doing it.
I will always remember working with Matt Millen in my first and final NFL broadcasts for Fox, prior to my stepping away.
It was the season opener in 1994, with the Giants hosting the Eagles, and in 2020, with the Houston Texans playing the Browns in Cleveland.
Bookends for the ages.
The agent, Sandy Montag, the Glickman recipient last year, did the actual presentation for my award.
I’ve known Sandy for decades, as the man who represented John Madden.
We were all friends. Madden, Sandy and I spent many hours together.
I held up the beautiful crystal trophy which was sent to me, and as it turned out , had a special meaning.
The designer was the world’s foremost in his field, a man who has been commissioned by Pesidents of the United States, by producers of international sporting events and by the entertaining industry, among others.
His name is Peter Wayne Yenawine, and he happens to be the brother of Marty Yenawine, who rresides in Clayton, NY, and is a dear friend of my wife Jamie, and myself.
Remarks were made, of course, by the three former S.U. grads who are in the midst of immensely successful careers of their own.
Sean McDonough, the voice of the NHL on ESPN, and the number 2 college football announcer, Mike Tirico, who has become America’s top host of virtually all the leading sports events, as well as the lead broadcaster for Sunday NightFootball on NBC, and Ian Eagle, the CBS commentator who will become the voice of the NCAA Basketball Tournament including the Final Four, all spoke.
It was my turn to speak and talked of the many meaningful events of my career before opening the forum to questions from the panelists on the zoom.
Receiving career awards and accepting accolades has never been important . Those who know me are aware that it has been enough for me to be grateful in attempting to be a good reporter of the events I have covered throughout my career.
But I realized in the course of this particular presentation, the fact that I may have been someone younger hopefuls wanted to follow, just a I had the many broadcasters I had hoped to become.
In a way, my gratitude of having covered so many major sports moments, and hopefully enhancing those memories for the viewer, also includes setting some kind of standard so that future sports announcers would be eager to work hard and someday achieve success at a high level.
I was proud to receive the Marty Glickman Award from Syracuse University, which was the foundation of my career in broadcasting, and realized more than ever, the effect it had on others.
Special, indeed.