It’s been a while since ESPN’s Mike Tirico has anchored a SportsCenter. Over the years, he’s focused on play-by-play whether it was the PGA Tour on ESPN/ABC, college basketball and football, Monday Night Football or the NBA. He’s proven to be one of the network’s most versatile announcers whether it be as host or calling games.
Tonight, Tirico returns to his studio roots. Back in 1991 when he joined ESPN, Tirico was a SportsCenter anchor and before that, he was a sports reporter at WTVH in Syracuse. Here’s an example of his early days from 1988!
You could see in that video some of the qualities that would make Tirico one of the cornerstones of ESPN.
This morning, Tirico will host SportsCenter segments from Augusta to preview the final round of The Masters, then around noon ET, he’ll fly back to ESPN’s world headquarters in Bristol, CT to co-anchor the 11 p.m. SportsCenter with John Buccigross who will be fresh off calling the NCAA Division I Men’s Hockey Championships. That’s going to be some heavy double duty for ESPN for both men.
Tirico who has been at Augusta for most of the week, fronting Wednesday’s Par 3 Contest and the first two rounds of The Masters for ESPN will review the tournament from Bristol tonight. Tirico seems excited by the thought of being back in the central CT studios:
“It has been a while,” Tirico said. “I think I’ll need a lot of direction to figure out what to do but I’m really looking forward to it.
“I may go months between visits to Bristol because the job takes me to wherever the games are to do the play-by-play,” he said. “And the only studio shows I do are at events like Wimbledon, U.S. Open, a little bit with the golf and the World Cup last year on the road.
“So I’m excited to see if I can still read a ‘shot sheet’ and do highlights like I did when I broke in 20-something years ago.”
For Tirico, it will be his first opportunity to anchor SportsCenter from inside the all-powerful Death Star which went fully operational last year.
An interesting note, Tirico who isn’t the tallest man on the planet might be seeking a platform to stand as tall as Buccigross who is 6′-4″: “Since you’re standing up so much on SportsCenter now, it’d be nice if I was doing the show with someone more my size. But as long as my shoes match it should be fun.”
