Costas Experiences Memorable Homecoming to Newhouse

SYRACUSE, N.Y- Bob Costas made an appearance at Newhouse last Friday in front of a captivated sold-out audience inside the Joyce Hergehan Auditorium. The 1974 grad spent over two hours describing pivotal points in his illustrious career and answering questions from the crowd. 

The event was moderated by longtime friend Professor John Nicholson, the founding director of the Sports Media Center. Current director, professor Olivia Stomski took over for Nicholson following his retirement. Nicholson saw the rise of Costas over the decades, from his time at Newhouse to one of the most prominent broadcasters ever. 

Costas has done it all over his nearly 50-year career, winning 29 Emmy Awards, 8 NMSA Sportscaster of the Year Awards, and is a National Baseball Hall of Famer. The WAER Hall of Famer has covered 12 Olympic games and called or hosted multiple World Series, Super Bowls, and NBA Finals. After stepping away from nearly 40 years with NBC in 2019, Costas now makes appearances on MLB Network and CNN, and hosts “Back On the Record With Bob Costas” on HBO.

Even though Costas is at the pinnacle of sports broadcasting, early on in his career he had doubts if he had what it took. Costas immediately got involved with WAER in his first semester on campus in 1970 and was “horrified” after hearing himself for the first time.

“Be so critical, but be so kind. I heard my first tape and thought that I had to switch careers when I heard my first tape from WAER. I thought I was doomed. You can’t compare or expect yourself to sound like Mike Tricio or Beth Mowens right out of out the box, and that’s okay,” Costas said.

As a senior, Costas broadcasted games for the hometown Syracuse Blazers minor league hockey team in the Eastern Hockey League. Costas made $30 per game but was determined to get enough reps that he would be hired upon graduation. His role with the Blazers led to filling in on the weekends for WSYR locally doing weather, sports, or anything he could get his hands on. 

Costas was fortunate to land at KMOX radio in St. Louis, Missouri once he left Newhouse in 1974. At 22 years old, Costas was the radio broadcaster for the ABA’s St. Louis Spirits and worked alongside legendary broadcaster Jack Buck at the station. Costas stayed him KMOX for seven years, and it would be the last job that he ever applied for. He knows that his path to being hired by NBC at 28 years old is extremely unlikely in the industry, and appreciates his ability to be a storyteller on air. 

“Thank goodness I can [broadcast] because I have no other discernible talents. Things that 95 percent of the population can do, I can’t. Fixing a flat tire, or changing a light bulb are just things that I can’t do. But I’m pretty good verbally and I always liked the English language,” Costas said. 

One of his childhood heroes, Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, was the “north star” of having a deep knowledge of language. Costas stressed multiple times to the audience how important it is for young broadcasters to read as much as they can. He also believes that media literacy is the most important class for them to take so they can find credible information from trustworthy sources. 

“I’ve always said the knowledge you gain when reading makes you well-phrased, know pacing, and the language better. When you’re broadcasting a game, having a feel of those aspects makes you better not just by what you say, but also by what you write in your copy,” Costas said. 

Over the years, Costas has never shied away from asking hard-hitting questions on controversial issues. Students saw a compilation over the years of complex topics and issues that Costas embraced head-on. Some of the topics were steroids in baseball, concussions in football, and political tensions during the Olympics. Someone who Costas admired for using his platform to speak up for injustices in sports or politics was Muhammad Ali. 

Costas remembers as a 12-year-old listening to Ali beat Sonny Liston on the radio. During his time at Syracuse, Ali was impactful for being an activist against the Vietnam War, eventually losing his heavyweight title because of it. When Ali passed in 2016, Costas was broadcasting a Cardinals game in St. Louis. NBC wanted him to do a piece of his life with a quick turnaround 

so we wrote his script for the piece on the back of a boarding pass that was taking him back to NBC  following his death. It was a quick turnaround for the piece as they wanted it to play in between periods of the upcoming Stanley Cup Finals game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks. Costas’ emotional tribute to arguably the best fighters of all time is one of the assignments he’s most proud of. 

“Had I not been paying attention to his remarkable life, I don’t think that piece would have had the texture that I hope it had. It would have had the usual platitudes that surround that kind of tribute, absent much insight. I was aiming to tell those grace notes, and maybe I was channeling some of those great voices of people I admired growing up,” Costas said.

A moment that Costas feels will stand the test of time is his final call during Game #6 of the 1997 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz. With the crowd’s eyes glued to the screen, Costas never turned and just listened attentively to one of the historic moments in all of sports. In what would end up being the final game of the Bulls dynasty, Michael Jordan hit a game-winning jumper with 5.2 seconds left to secure his sixth title. 

“I think people forget that this was a decade-long soap opera. From Michael [Jordan] winning his first title, his father being killed, playing minor league baseball, and then making his return to basketball. Going into that game we knew that it could be the end of his career, but this moment was bigger than that. How the moment happened, we couldn’t have asked for a better ending because it all came together,” Costas said. 

Make sure to watch out for Costas on MLB Network, HBO, and CNN. Also, be on the lookout for other alumni guest speakers throughout the academic year by following the Newhouse Sports Media Center on social media.