Marv Albert
Marv Albert (born Marvin Philip Aufrichtig; June 12, 1941) is an American former sportscaster. Honored for his work by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he was commonly referred to as "the voice of basketball". From 1967 to 2004, he was also known as "the voice of the New York Knicks". Albert worked for Turner Sports as the lead announcer for NBA games on TNT.
For the American crime novelist, see Marvin Albert.
Marv Albert
In addition to working extensively in both professional and college basketball, he has experience calling a variety of other sports, such as American football, ice hockey, horse racing, boxing, and tennis. Albert has called the play-by-play of eight Super Bowls, nine NBA Finals, and seven Stanley Cup Finals. He has also called the Wimbledon Tennis Championships for TNT with Jim Courier and Mary Carillo and has worked as a co-host and reporter for two World Series (1986 and 1988).
In 1997, Marv Albert was charged with forcible sodomy and assault and battery in 1997. He pled guilty to the assault charge and was given a 12-month suspended sentence. [2]
Albert hails from a family of broadcasters. His brothers, Al and Steve Albert, and a son, Kenny, are also play-by-play sports commentators.
In 2015, Albert was inducted into the broadcasting Hall of Fame.
Early life[edit]
Albert was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City, where he went to Abraham Lincoln High School.[2] His family members owned a grocery store on Brighton Beach Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets known as Aufrichtig. He attended Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications from 1960 through 1963.[3] In 1962, he served as the voice of the AAA Syracuse Chiefs.[4] He graduated from New York University in 1965.[5]
Broadcasting career[edit]
National Basketball Association[edit]
After getting his start by being a ball boy for the New York Knicks, Albert worked his first Knicks game as a broadcaster on January 27, 1963, on WCBS Radio. He was filling in for his mentor, Marty Glickman, who was away in Europe. The game was against the Celtics at the Boston Garden. Beginning in 1967 and lasting 37 years, Albert served as the voice of the New York Knicks on radio and television before being let go by James L. Dolan, the chairman of the MSG Network and Cablevision, after Albert criticized the team's poor play on-air in 2004. It was said that Albert's high salary was also a factor. His son, Kenny Albert, has been a part-time play-by-play announcer for the Knicks since 2009, filling in whenever the elder Albert's successor, Mike Breen, is unavailable.
Sexual assault[edit]
Albert was accused of sexually assaulting a 42-year-old woman in 1997.[42] The woman accused Albert of throwing her onto a bed, biting her, then forcing her to perform oral sex after a February 12, 1997, argument in his Pentagon City hotel room. DNA testing linked Albert to genetic material taken from the bite marks and from semen in her underwear.[43] During the trial, another woman, Patricia Masden, testified that Albert had bitten her on two separate occasions, in Miami in 1993 and in Dallas in 1994, which she viewed as unwanted sexual advances.[44] Masden, a VIP liaison for Hyatt Hotels, claimed that Albert called her to help him send a fax from his Dallas hotel room, where she found him wearing "white panties and garter belt".[45] Albert's defense team said that the judge blocked most of what they wanted to bring to trial in Albert's defense, prompting them to accept a plea deal from the prosecutors. Albert pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery charges, while a felony charge of forcible sodomy was dropped.[46][47] He was given a 12-month suspended sentence.[48] The conviction was expunged from his record a year later, in accordance with the terms of his sentencing.[49] In an interview with Barbara Walters, Albert maintained that his accuser had requested he bite her. He also denied her accusation that he had requested she bring another man into their sexual affair. He described her recorded conversation with the police on the night of the incident as "an Academy Award performance".[42]
NBC – for which Albert worked for over 20 years – fired him hours after he entered his guilty plea.[46] His last NFL broadcast for NBC before being fired was the Baltimore Ravens-New York Giants game alongside Randy Cross and Len Berman.[50][51] Bob Costas took over for Albert on NBA on NBC in the 1997–98 NBA season.[52] Tom Hammond would eventually move up to the #2 team (behind Dick Enberg, Paul Maguire, and Phil Simms), while Dan Hicks would primarily call games with Hammond's old partner, Jim Kelly. NBC rehired Albert less than two years after firing him, with Chairman of NBC Sports Dick Ebersol stating that, "Marv has done what he had to do" since being fired.[53]