Chris Berman will be stepping down from ESPN’s NFL squad after the conclusion of this season’s payoffs. But the good news is he will be staying with the network.
He was born Christopher James Berman to Jewish parents in Greenwich, Connecticut. Yes Jews really did name their son Christopher.
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Berman has been with ESPN since its beginning in 1979 when Chris was only 24 years old. He has been synonymous with America’s first cable sports network for four decades now.
Advice for broadcasters taking my place? Work on still making mouth sounds after lungs have stopped giving you air. No one will ever notice
— chris berman (@BoomsFreshTakes) January 5, 2017
“I’m thrilled that this ride will continue, albeit differently, ” Berman said in a statement. “Today’s announcement allows me to fulfill perhaps my final professional goal – knowing that I will finish with the team I came in with.”
“If you boil down our lives a little bit, and we all hope that we are pretty healthy to 80, and after that we take what we get, ” Berman said on Thursday. “From zero to 20 is when you are in school. You work the second and third quarters, and do other stuff for the fourth quarter. I think that is a good life plan.
“It is all good, I get to stay here and be involved with football and baseball and the ESPYs and some things still to be defined. This has kind of been in the works in my head and in this place’s head, and we finally figured it out.”
Berman said that the height of his professional career was covering the game whereCal Ripken passed Lou Gehrig for the all time consecutive games played record. He said, “That stood as more than even a baseball accomplishment. It was like America: go to work every day for 14 1-2 years and not call in sick. That’s a night I still get tears speaking about. Frankly, that’s why we did not speak for all those minutes”
“Then President Bill Clinton comes in the booth for an inning. And we had Joe DiMaggio as sort of representing Lou Gehrig and saying, ‘my teammate Lou Gehrig would be proud tonight.’ Wow!”
Chris Berman stepping away from being the face of ESPN's NFL coverage. https://t.co/6fWrDNxkwp pic.twitter.com/aMTmUcJ7XJ
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 5, 2017
Chris Berman is beloved by millions of sports fans from both generations X and Y who have never known a world of sports broadcasting without him. Berman is best known for his quirky behavior and the humorous way in which he reviews the sports highlights during the halftime shows and on SportsCenter.
