Dan Shulman

Daniel "Dan" Shulman (born February 9, 1967) is a Canadian sportscaster with the American network ESPN as well as Canadian network Sportsnet.

Shulman serves as a play-by-play announcer for ESPN's men's college basketball coverage (with Jay Bilas) and Sunday Night Baseball (with Aaron Boone and Jessica Mendoza) as well as post-season baseball coverage on ESPN Radio and select Toronto Blue Jays telecasts on Sportsnet.

Education

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Shulman graduated from the University of Western Ontario in actuarial science but moved into a career in sports broadcasting.

Broadcasting career

Early career

Shulman began his broadcasting career at the University of Western Ontario, becoming a main voice of university football and basketball for the Western Mustangs on CHRW radio in London, Ontario, and later at radio station CKBB in Barrie, where he volunteered for the local community television station. With the help of Erick Anderson (sports producer), he did the play-by-play for the local junior B hockey team. During the early 1990s, he was hired by the Fan 1430 (a sports radio station in Toronto now known as Sportsnet Radio The Fan 590) as the host of Prime Time Sports. He worked for CTV in its coverage of the 1994 Winter Olympics from Lillehammer, Norway, covering hockey, and the 1994 World Championships of Basketball.

TSN

In 1995, he became the play-by-play voice on TSN for their broadcasts of Toronto Blue Jays baseball games alongside former Blue Jays catcher Buck Martinez. Shulman remained with the network for seven years, during which time he also worked as the network's secondary play-by-play voice for NHL hockey and lead announcer for NBA basketball. He also covered CHL games and backed up host Dave Hodge on TSN Inside Sports. Until 2007, Shulman continued to work with Buck Martinez for TSN during the World Series, filing daily reports. In 2011, he returned to TSN as an analyst and contributor.

ESPN

Shulman began working part-time for ESPN while still employed by TSN. In 2001, he moved to ESPN full-time to cover sporting events like baseball, college basketball, and occasionally hockey. ESPN signed Shulman to a five-year contract extension in 2007 and assigned him to call NBA games for the network. Shulman remains the network's lead announcer for NCAA basketball.

On July 27, 2007, Shulman called Barry Bonds's 754th home run for ESPN.

From 2002 to 2007, he served as the lead play-by-play announcer for ESPN Radio's MLB coverage, teaming with Dave Campbell to call the network's Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts as well as the All-Star Game, Home Run Derby, and select postseason games. In 2008, Gary Thorne succeeded Shulman as the lead Sunday Night Baseball voice; however, Shulman once again teamed with Campbell to call that year's All-Star and postseason events and continued to fill in on occasional regular season broadcasts. Shulman also teamed with Orel Hershiser to call Monday Night Baseball for ESPN television from 2008 to 2010 and with Hubie Brown to call ESPN NBA coverage from 2007 to 2012.

On March 14, 2010, Duke's Kyle Singler saved a loose ball along the sideline, in turn leaped over the ESPN announcer's table, and crashed into Shulman, who was sitting courtside, broadcasting with Dick Vitale during the first half of play at the ACC Conference Men's Basketball Championship game versus Georgia Tech. No serious injuries were reported.

On December 1, 2010, Shulman, Hershiser, and Bobby Valentine were named as ESPN's new Sunday Night Baseball crew for the 2011 MLB season. During the Sunday Night Baseball telecast between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies on May 1, 2011, Shulman announced live to the ESPN audience that Osama bin Laden had died, a moment that has been compared to Howard Cosell's report of John Lennon's assassination on Monday Night Football in 1980. Shulman told USA Today that he had learned of bin Laden's death from Valentine, who himself received the news via text. "I talked to the producer in the truck and asked if they knew what was going on. Or maybe they asked me," said Shulman. "I couldn't just say something on-air because of a text, I needed corroboration. It all happened in about 30 seconds."^[1]

Shulman also teamed with Orel Hershiser and Bobby Valentine for the ESPN Radio broadcast of the 2011 World Series won in 7 games by the St. Louis Cardinals over the Texas Rangers.

That same year, he teamed with Dick Vitale for the broadcast of the Indiana–Kentucky rivalry on December 10, 2011. His call for the game winning three-pointer by Christian Watford was “Jones... Watford for the win… YES! YES!” with Vitale screaming “Unbelievable!” shortly after.

Shulman was named 2011 National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, the first Canadian-born announcer to be so honoured.

On July 3, 2017, Shulman announced in a Sports Illustrated interview that he would step down from Sunday Night Baseball at the conclusion of the 2017 season, seeking to adjust his role at ESPN so he could spend more time with his family in Toronto. He will still participate in ESPN Radio coverage of the MLB postseason, and ESPN's college basketball coverage.^[2]

Sportsnet

In addition to his continued work with ESPN, on November 19, 2015, Shulman announced he would be joining the Sportsnet broadcast team for upwards of 30 Toronto Blue Jays games during the 2016 and 2017 seasons.^[3]

External links

• ESPN bio
• TSN bio
• Dan Shulman on Twitter
  

References