Anish Shroff has accomplished a lot in his broadcasting career.
The Bloomfield, New Jersey product honed his skills at Syracuse University and rose to prominence as a finalist on the ESPN reality show Dream Job. While he didn’t win the show, he parlayed that into experience working as an anchor, talk-show host, and play-by-play announcer before landing a eventually job with ESPN calling various sports, including college football, college basketball, college baseball, and lacrosse. Last year, he fulfilled a lifelong dream and became the radio play-by-play voice of the Carolina Panthers.
Shroff’s time at Syracuse was instrumental in preparing him for the broadcasting career ahead. And he credits one announcer specifically with being the reason he decided that’s where he wanted to go to school.
“The reason I went to Syracuse was Bob Costas,” Shroff told Brandon Contes on the latest episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast. “Costas made me smarter every time I watched one of his events. He could be emceeing the opening ceremonies for the Athens Olympics and I remember it was like this history of the Peloponnesian War and the history of Ancient Greece and Thermopylae and Leonidas. ‘Man, like, how does this guy know all this stuff?’ It was incredible.”
It wasn’t just Costas that made Syracuse stand out for the Shroff, as so many other sports broadcasters he looked up to also cut their teeth there.
“Having Marv [Albert], obviously. Ian Eagle. Len Berman used to anchor the local nightly news on NBC,” said Shroff. “I would watch Len every day. My mom loved him, our family loved him. He was Uncle Len in our household and we didn’t have cable, we didn’t have SportsCenter, so we got our news from Len.”
Shroff also added that he was an obsessive WFAN listener growing up and was very familiar with not just the hosts but also the infamous callers.
“I remember the callers. Doris from Rego Park. Jerome from Manhattan,” he added.
Listen to Shroff’s full appearance on the Awful Announcing Podcast, which includes discussions about eating weird things at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, his experience on Dream Job, becoming the radio voice of the Panthers, and much more. Subscribe to the Awful Announcing Podcast and to Awful Announcing’s YouTube channel for the latest clips and highlights.
