In sports, not all the long shots
who succeed are athletes. In 1984, Tom Hammond, a forty-year-old sportscaster
who had primarily worked in Kentucky and the Southeast, got an unlikely
opportunity to appear on the NBC Sports telecast of the inaugural Breeders'
Cup. Assigned to report from the stall area on what was supposed to be a single
broadcast, Hammond performed so well that an NBC executive offered him a chance
to call NFL games on the spot. That broadcast launched Hammond's
thirty-four-year career with NBC Sports and his rise to the top levels of
American television sportscasting. Along with cowriter Mark Story, Hammond
pulls back the curtain to reveal how a Kentucky native who started out reading
horse racing results on Lexington radio went on to broadcast from thirteen
Olympic Games.
While covering Thoroughbred racing
for NBC, Hammond broadcast sixteen Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes races
and eleven runnings of the Belmont Stakes, including American Pharoah's
historic 2015 Triple Crown victory. Hammond offers glimpses into his time as
the play-by-play voice for Notre Dame football, calling NBA and NFL games, and
his long-running stint announcing Southeastern Conference men's basketball for
the league's syndicated TV package. Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams is
an intimate and gripping look at Hammond's experiences, including his coverage
of Olympic track and field, figure skating, speed skating, ice dancing, diving,
and basketball events. Hammond worked with broadcasting luminaries such as Dick
Enberg, Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth, and Bill Walton, and encountered
world-class athletes like Allyson Felix, Michael Jordan, Sarah Hughes, and
Peyton Manning. Although his career has spanned the nation and the world,
Hammond's roots have always remained firmly planted in the Bluegrass State.
Tom Hammond is a
retired American sports broadcaster.
Mark Story, a sports
reporter with the Lexington Herald-Leader for more than three
decades, has been a sports columnist since 2001. He writes about college
football and basketball and has covered every Kentucky Derby since 1994.