Who has seized the moment in the Milan Cortina Olympics?
Figure skater Mikhail Shaidorov upset Ilia Milanin for the gold in the freeskate, cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo wowed viewers by going 11 miles per hour uphill and winning five golds. Alysa Liu, who was raised in the East Bay, delivered a thrilling free skate Thursday to give the U.S. its first individual women’s figure skating gold in 24 years.
And I’m not sure that any of them have risen to the challenge quite like Mike Tirico, the primetime host for NBC’s coverage. Hosting the Olympics isn’t new to Tirico. It’s his fifth time playing traffic cop on a world stage. Tirico has more than upheld the standard of previous hosts for various networks such as Bob Costas, Bryant Gumbel, Dick Enberg, Jim McKay and — believe it not — Walter Cronkite in the first televised Winter Olympics from Lake Tahoe in 1960.
What set apart Tirico this year was his opening act. First, Tirico called Super Bowl 60 at Levi’s Stadium with Cris Collinsworth. A 29-13 win by the Seattle Seahawks wasn’t much in terms of drama, but Tirico was flawless and so on top of the game that he openly challenged a late decision (and mistake) by New England coach Mike Vrabel for failing to go for a two-point conversion after the Patriots’ first touchdown.
Then, with confetti falling in Santa Clara, Tirico, 59, joined in NBC’s early coverage of Milan Cortina before boarding a 10 1/2-hour flight to Italy to be beamed into living rooms across all NBC platforms for 16 days of games.
“It was as great as I could have imagined,” Tirico told USA Today. “At no point did I sit there and go ‘It’s over a billion people watching.’ There was none of that.”
Two showcases with staggering amounts of prep work bumping up against each other and huge ratings. Attempting to know everything possible about two teams in the Super Bowl, followed by sorting through a competition with 116 medal events and 2,900 competitors. Different countries and different pronunciations. A million ways to make a mistake.
When Tirico returns from Italy, he’ll be the lead play-by-play voice for NBC and Peacock’s coverage of the NBA.
As a youth, I wanted to be an announcer until it was clear that stumbling over words and despising the sound of my own voice probably merited working in sports coverage at a computer in paragraph form. I was more nervous meeting Bill King for the first time after listening to him with the Warriors and Raiders than asking athletes questions as a young reporter.
But the preparation and skill needed to put moments into perspective with proper context and relay the excitement have always been fascinating.
Especially when those voices are able to turn on a dime and perform in a different way within the medium. Greg Papa, an iconic Bay Area voice in football, basketball and baseball, plus radio shows, is a friend of Tirico’s dating back to their days at Syracuse.
Barry Tompkins is a veteran announcer who is probably best known for boxing but has actually been a local network anchor and covered tennis, college basketball and college football. His Olympic experience includes boxing and track and field in the summer and alpine skiing in the Winter Games.
Papa and Tompkins know more about the art of broadcast sports than I ever will, and they were as impressed as I was.
If not more.
“I don’t know if anyone’s ever done what Mike’s doing now,” Papa said. “He went right to the Olympic coverage and Breezy Johnson and the downhill and Lindsey Vonn falling. Next thing you know, he’s in a studio in Milan. But he’s unflappable doing a game and he’s unflappable in the studio. He’s right there with anyone, Jim McKay and Bob Costas or anybody who ever hosted the Olympics. If anyone can handle an assignment like this, it’s certainly Mike.”
Said Tompkins: “What he did on (Super Bowl) Sunday, you can’t do much better than that. I’ll bet there’s not two or three guys ever that could do that.”
Tompkins was covering the French Open one year and found himself at a table with a young Tirico peppering him with questions about his craft and handling different aspects of the job.
“We sat in a hotel lobby for about two or three hours. We talked about tennis. Talked about football. Talked about basketball,” Tompkins recalled. “He was voracious. He just wanted to know everything.”
Broadcasting the Olympics carries its own set of challenges. The best laid plans can change in an instant.
“There’s a format, but if it rains on top of a mountain and the downhill gets delayed by an hour, now what are you doing?” Tompkins said. “You really have to tap dance and may need to fill time that you never expected.”
The biggest names in broadcasting can do an iconic moment justice. They become part of history. When Al Michaels called the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s win over the Soviet Union and eventual gold medal, it was born of preparation and understanding the drama.
Michaels was the Giants’ radio announcer along with Lon Simmons in 1977 and 1978 and thus had an intimate knowledge of the area. So when he was broadcasting the Bay Bridge World Series in 1989 and the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, Michaels was seamless in going from sports anchor to a news anchor in the middle of a disaster.
It solidified his status as one of the greats of his profession — the same thing Tirico is doing right now.
WATCH LIST: Don’t miss “Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association” on Amazon Prime. The ABA instituted the 3-point shot and the slam dunk contest and played a wide-open brand of basketball that can be traced directly to what the NBA is now. There is lots of material from Rick Barry, Julius Erving and others, including Barry’s jump from the Warriors to the Oakland Oaks. It’s four parts and leaves you wanting even more.
GREG PAPA UPDATE: Papa is scheduled to be hospitalized on Feb. 25 and will be prepped for a bone marrow transplant on March 4 as he battles leukemia. After approximately 20 days, Papa then will go back into what is essentially a protective bubble for a time. His hope, if all goes well, is to be cleared for football travel at the start of the season.
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