Greg Gumbel is the older brother of news and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, and Greg is the first African-American announcer to call play-by-play of a major sports championship in the United States when he announced Super Bowl XXXV for the CBS network in 2001. He is of Creole ancestry, born in Louisiana but raised in Chicago.
Both Gumbels attended De La Salle Institute and grew up in Hyde Park. Greg Gumbel did all his socializing on the North Side while living on the South Side (the same Hyde Park area as Muhammad Ali). He later lived in Lakeview, just off Lake Michigan on the north side at Melrose between Broadway and Sheridan. Greg Gumbel also resided at Edgewater Beach apartments.
Bryant Gumbel told Greg Gumbel about an opening at WMAQ-TV NBC 5 in Chicago, and that sports reporter job was how Greg got his first gig. I had an exclusive with Greg Gumbel at NFL on CBS Media Day.
“It’s no secret, it starts with the quarterback, and in Jay Cutler you have one of the more strong armed guys in the world. So he’s a good place to start,” Greg Gumbel said.
“I hear good things about the coach, but people who make predictions at this time of the year are flat out stupid, and I will say they’re flat out stupid, because you don’t know how the loss of key people from the previous year will affect the team, you don’t know how new people coming are going to blend, you don’t know how rookies are going to perform and injuries,” Greg Gumbel continued.
I don’t think you can really take a team’s temperature until about week five or week six, to see what direction they’re going. Other than that it’s just guesses, it’s pure folly,” Gumbel said.
Greg Gumbel was lead announcer for The NFL on CBS between 1998 and 2003, calling Super Bowls XXXV and XXXVIII during that time period. For the 2004 NFL season, Greg Gumbel traded positions with Jim Nantz as host of The NFL Today with Nantz taking over as lead announcer. At the end of the 2005 NFL season, Gumbel was replaced as studio host of The NFL Today by James Brown. Gumbel returned to the broadcast booth as the #2 play-by-play man, replacing Dick Enberg, alongside color man Dan Dierdorf.
Greg Gumbel is the third man to serve as both host and play-by-play announcer for Super Bowls (the first two were Dick Enberg and Al Michaels respectively). He hosted Super Bowls XXVI, XXX, and XXXII before calling Super Bowls XXXV and XXXVIII. Jim Nantz became the fourth man to do so after he called Super Bowl XLI for CBS.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan, he also writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)