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Jim Nantz named 2007 National Sportscaster of the Year
CBS Sports' Jim Nantz has been named the 2007 National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Nantz also won the prestigious award in 2005 and 1998.
Voting takes place by the nearly 1,000 members of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, as well as various sports editors and sports directors of newspapers and television stations, respectively, throughout the country. This year marks the 49th year the NSSA has given out the award.
In 2007 starting with his play-by-play call of Super Bowl XLI, Nantz had an historic 63-day broadcasting run as he became the first commentator in history to broadcast the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four and Masters, all in the same year. He has followed up that historic broadcasting run by calling play-by-play for much of another historic run, the undefeated regular-season of the New England Patriots during the 2007 NFL season.
Nantz, who has covered virtually every sport for the CBS Television Network since joining it in 1985, has been the lead play-by-play voice for "The NFL on CBS" since the 2004 season joining lead analyst Phil Simms on the network's number one NFL announce team. For six years, he anchored the Network's NFL pre-game studio show, "The NFL Today."
His extensive credits include serving as host of "The Super Bowl Today," CBS Sports' Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game shows; anchor of CBS's golf coverage, including the Masters and the PGA Championship; lead play-by-play announcer for college basketball, including the Final Four and Championship game; and primetime host of CBS Sports' coverage of the 1998 Olympic Winter Games.
When Nantz was named the 1998 National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, he joined Pat Summerall, Chris Schenkel, Ray Scott and John Madden as the only commentators to ever win the award while working at CBS Sports. In addition, when he won the award in 2005, he joined Schenkel and Scott as the only CBS broadcasters to win the award more than once. Nantz also was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the youngest recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award in 2002.
Nantz is currently writing his first book and in May 2008, Always By My Side -- A Father's Grace and a Sports Journey Unlike Any Other, will hit bookstores across the country. Nantz will tell his personal stories from football, basketball and golf and how he has met people along the way who remind him of the virtues his father instilled in him. The foreword to the book will be written by one of his father figures and dear friend, former President George H.W. Bush.
