New York City – Wednesday was a big day and night for Beth Mowins, G’90. Not only did she become the third recipient of the Newhouse Sports Media Center’s Marty Glickman Award for Leadership in Sports Media, but it was announced that she will call play-by-play of Oakland Raiders pre-season games on local TV and that she has agreed to a new multi-year contract with ESPN.
Bob Costas ’74, the first to receive the Glickman Award, presented it to Mowins during a program in the Time Warner Screening Room, off Columbus Circle before an audience that included members of the Glickman family as well as Mowins’ father Len. There were tributes from John Eves, who gave Mowins her first professional job at WXHC in Homer, N.Y., as well as her ESPN colleagues Holly Rowe and Doris Burke. Video messages came from Laurie Orlando ’87, Sean McDonough ’84 and Mike Tirico ’88 of ESPN, all SU alums, and Gayle Sierens Martin, the only women ever to have called play-by-play of an NFL game on a network (NBC in 1987.) Sierens said she expected Mowins to become the second woman to that and promised to be at the game when it happens.
Mowins drew a big round of applause when she announced that she will be calling the Raiders games, making Sierens look prescient in the process and adding that she’ll have to get a ticket to Oakland for the first game on Aug. 14 against the St. Louis Rams.
Among those who came to the pre-program cocktail hour was ESPN President John Skipper, who said he’d like to come to campus at SU. He was told that will be arranged quickly, and ESPN Executive VP and Newhouse alum John Wildhack agreed to help make it happen.
The audience included many more Syracuse alums such as CBS announcer Ian Eagle, CBS TV host Adam Zucker, Ron Wechsler, Senior VP of NBC Sports Group, Damon Amendolara (DA) of CBS Sports Radio, Kristie Ackert and Gary Myers of the New York Daily News, Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News, Ed Placey of ESPN, Zach Schonbrun and Tom Coffey of the New York Times and Josh Barnett of USA Today, plus a wide variety of recent grads working their way up the ladder at ESPN, MLB Network and others.
In addition to Costas, Mowins joins Marv Albert as recipient of the Marty Glickman Award. Next year’s honoree will be selected in the spring with the event to be scheduled for next summer.