Sean McDonough and Kevin Harlan have become titans of the sports broadcasting world. But did you know they were once roommates?
The ESPN and WEEI broadcaster sat down with Nick Kostos on the You Better You Bet podcast on Audacy’s BetMGM Network this past week and shared an anecdote about the time two up-and-coming college broadcasters were interning together in Connecticut.
“Kevin Harlan and I were actually roommates in the summer of 1981, when we were both interning at a place called Enterprise Radio in Avon, Connecticut,” said McDonough. “So we shared a house that a nice woman, Doris Sterns, rented each of us a room. Kevin’s been a great pal. Gosh, I don’t even want to know how many years ago that was, but what’s that, 44 years ago? So we’ve been friends for a long time.”
Naturally, McDonough was asked to share a good story about Harlan from that time, and the Syracuse grad obliged.
“The woman who was our host, who rented us the rooms, she had a couple of bedrooms upstairs in her house and a bathroom. We were there for not a lot of money in her house. And for, I think it was five dollars a day each, she would make us basically three meals. Kevin and I were interning most of the time at alternating times in terms of our shift at Enterprise Radio. So we weren’t always there together
“She was hard of hearing, very hard of hearing. And she had a little device on her phone that it raised the volume. It was like a little knob you had to turn. And if you answer the phone in her house and you forgot to turn that down before you answer the phone, your ear got blasted. But Kevin, we’d be sitting at this really small table eating, and Mrs. Stern made a nice dinner for us. And she looked down and Kevin, she’s sitting two feet away, and Kevin would look at me and say, ‘Can you believe how bad this food is?’ He knew she wouldn’t hear it.
“But I just love the guy. I mean, I have ever since. He was a great guy back then. I knew he was going to be a great broadcaster. As a matter of fact, the summer we were together in Enterprise Radio, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, maybe I should think about doing something else because if all these kids my age who are in college are as good as Kevin is, then I have no chance.’
“We’ve kept in touch through the years, and I think we’re both happy for each other’s career path. If you could have told us back then that we’d each wind up doing what we wound up doing, we would have been elated, and we are elated. We both feel very blessed and happy we’ve had a chance to do all these things.”
It’s hard to imagine there was a time when Kevin Harlan spoke, and someone sitting nearby couldn’t hear him.
Kevin Harlan calling this crazy sequence in the final minute of the Grizzlies-Sixers game 🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/hCtQmOCvVh
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 24, 2023
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.