In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Management of Sports Industries Program at the University of New Haven, noted ESPN sportscaster Chris Berman will participate in an extended sports dialogue with ESPN producer and UNH alumnus Craig Mortali ‘84, followed by a Q&A session. The event is co-sponsored by the UNH College of Business and Liberty Mutual.
The talk will be on Thursday, Apr. 15, at 7pm in the Charger Gymnasium at North Campus.
Chris Berman joined ESPN in 1979 and has hosted numerous programs during his three decades with the network, including SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight, Monday Night Countdown, NFL Primetime, Major League Baseball games, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the U.S. Open. He anchored ABC’s Super Bowl pre-game shows in 2000, 2003 and 2006 and has covered 23 MLB all-star games. He has hosted Sunday NFL Countdown for the past 24 seasons; during his tenure the program was the recipient of seven Sports Emmy Awards for Outstanding Studio Show-Weekly and five CableACE awards. In addition, Berman has been elected National Sportscaster of the Year six times by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, has won the Reds Bagnell Award from the Maxwell Football Club of Philadelphia, the Pat Summerall Award for excellence in football broadcasting, and five CableACE awards as cable’s best sports host. He was voted “Best Cable Sportscaster” three times by “The Cable Guide” and has received 10 Emmy nominations as best sports host. Prior to ESPN, Berman worked in radio for WERI in Westerly, R.I., and WNVR in Waterbury, Conn. He graduated from Brown University in 1977 with a B.A. in history, and has since been inducted into the Brown University Athletics Hall of Fame, and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from his alma mater in 2007.
Since Craig Mortali’s internship at ESPN in 1983, and his graduation from UNH in 1984 with a B.S. in communication, the award-winning producer has spent his entire professional career at the world-renowned sports network, participating in the company’s development from a niche channel in the infancy of cable television to a media giant and one of the nation’s preeminent sports brands. While his specialty lies in documentary and long-form production, Mortali also has experience in live studio and field-production for shows including SportsCenter, NFL Gameday, NFL Primetime” and Outside the Lines. He has won six Emmy Awards while at ESPN, and his recent documentary, Triumph and Tragedy: The Ray Mancini Story, won the 2008 CableFAX Program Award for “Best Sports Show.” As an undergraduate at UNH, Mortali worked for WNHU-FM as a sportscaster, talk-show host and disc jockey. Mortali also served as the radio station’s public relations director and sports director during his junior and senior years, respectively. When the UNH football program was reinstated in 2009, Mortali was invited to return as the play-by-play voice of the UNH Chargers. He was recognized with the UNH Distinguished Alumni Award in 2002 and named Executive in Residence by the UNH Management of Sports Industries Program, where he serves on the advisory board.
The talk is sure to be an exciting and educational event for all who come; it will be held on Thursday, Apr. 15 at 7:00pm in the Charger Gymnasium.
