Few faces and voices are more synonymous with NBC Sports than Tom Hammond. For 34 years, he was on the broadcast for some of the biggest events in sports, such as the Kentucky Derby, the Olympics, Notre Dame football, the NFL, and the NBA. Hammond, who retired in 2018, released a book last month.
Races, Games, and Olympic Dreams A Sportscaster’s Life was co-written by Hammond and Mark Story, a sports columnist for The Lexington Herald-Leader. We recently caught up with Hammond, 80, to talk to him about his journey from Lexington, where he also attended the University of Kentucky, to becoming one of the most well-known sportscasters of his era. His book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Awful Announcing: What made you want to write a book?
Tom Hammond: “When I retired after the Winter Olympics in 2018, I needed to decompress for a while. I wasn’t up to the task of really writing a book. In the meantime, the University of Kentucky kept after me to do an oral history. Finally, I decided to do both of these tasks. When Mark Story signed on to write it with me, that was the clincher. Mark would come out to my house and question me, then he would take that transcript and write a chapter of the book. I would go through it, adjust it, correct it, or make suggestions.
“The reason I’m writing it was A: to satisfy all the people who said I should do it over the years, and B: to give something to my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and on and on, to know something about all these old stories.”
Why should a casual sports fan buy this book?
“First, it’s an unlikely story because I never intended to be a sports announcer. I was lucky enough to be associated with some of the great sporting events of my era, including 13 Olympics. That led to many, many stories. I think that people will find those stories interesting, and they cover the gamut of sports. If you’re a football fan, there’s something about Notre Dame and the NFL. If you’re a basketball fan, there’s something about basketball, both college and NBA. If you like track and field or horse racing, there’s something in there for you. And even if you enjoy figure skating, there’s something in there about figure skating.”
What did you want to be when you were growing up in Kentucky?
“I thought I was going to go into the thoroughbred horse business. I went to UK and majored in animal science. In the summers of my high school years, I worked out at Spendthrift Farm. In the summers of my college years, I went to New York and worked at Belmont Park and Saratoga as a groom for the Hall of Fame trainer Sherrill Ward. When I graduated from college, I couldn’t find a very good job. So, not knowing what else to do, I went to graduate school.”
How did you first get into broadcasting?
“While I was in graduate school, I was also doing some pedigree work for a horseman named Tom Gentry just to earn some extra money. He had a friend, David Hooper, who worked for the Daily Racing Form. He also had a nightly show on the radio where he read race results. This was before the information age. This was in the 60s. Hooper was being transferred by the Form to Miami. He couldn’t find anyone to take his place. So I said, ‘I bet I could do that.’ I needed a job. He said, ‘Fine, see you at the radio station tomorrow evening.’ That was it. I got the job by default. I’m sure I was terrible, but I got the job for the princely sum of $35 a week.”
What was your big break with NBC?
“In 1984, when NBC got the very first Breeders’ Cup, Dick Enberg recommended me to be on the crew. NBC had never done horse racing. They saw that each race lasted about two minutes. They had four hours to fill. So, they hired a bunch of announcers to help them get through that. I was one of them. I might have been the last guy on the totem pole because my assignment was to report stories from the stable area. At the end of that broadcast, Michael Weisman, the executive producer of NBC Sports, said to me, ‘We didn’t realize until this week that we had a real broadcaster on our hands. Would you be interested in doing other things for NBC Sports, starting with the NFL? That was the start of 34 years at NBC Sports.”
Do you have a favorite sports moment?
“Reggie Miller in an NBA playoff game, the Pacers and the Knicks, when he hit a three-pointer and then stepped in and stole the inbounds pass, took a step back behind the three-point line and hit another three-pointer to take them to go on to win at Madison Square Garden. That was a great memory in the NFL playoffs. The Beast Quake, when Marshawn Lynch ran it for a touchdown against the Saints. I could go through when American Pharoah broke the triple crown jinx and won the Belmont Stakes. Pandemonium broke out at the track. The real greatest moments were in the Olympics. Some of the memories are my greatest thrills of broadcasting. Usain Bolt winning the gold medal and setting the world record in Beijing in 2008.”
What would you consider the most fascinating story in your book?
“I was shot and stabbed. I had stopped at a little country store out in Jessamine County, Kentucky with some guys. We had been down to the river, and the guys went into the little store to get a soda or something. I was still sitting in the car, and a guy up on the porch of this country store started throwing rocks down at the car. I got out to see what was going on. I said, ‘Hey, what the hell are you doing?’ The guy shot at me. It grazed my arm, but I didn’t feel it. I had never been in a situation like this. I thought it was a starter’s gun. He was just doing it to try to scare me.
“I engaged him. I was able to punch him or turn him around and grab him with my arm around his neck and my other hand holding the gun so he couldn’t shoot me. By then I figured maybe it was real. Then a guy who turned out to be his cousin came at me with a knife and sliced me across the head. When I took my hand away to try to get him off me, the guy took the gun, stuck it in my side, and shot me. I was a sophomore in college.”
That’s horrifying. What happened next?
“The ambulance came and took me to the hospital, luckily there was no lasting damage, although it missed by millimeters of hitting my spine. It could have been tragic. They eventually caught the guy, and he got seven years in the penitentiary. A lot more details are in the book.”
How long did it take to recover?
“I was in the hospital for a couple of days. They stitched me up. Then I seeped blood for a day or so after that, so they had to go back in and cauterize some of those capillaries. After that, I was OK. It took a few weeks to recover.
“They threatened to kill me after the trial, his friends and family, so I had to be wary for a while. When I recovered, I left and went to New York to work my summer job so I didn’t have to worry about those guys anymore.”
Are you still involved in horse racing?
“For the last 20 or 30 years, I’ve owned pieces of horses, and we have a little stable. It’s called Peacock Stable, and Mike Battaglia is in on the deal. So is Cris Collinsworth and (restaurateur) Jeff Ruby. A lot of former or ex-NBC production personnel also are participants. We usually own two or three horses a year. Some have done well. Some haven’t.
“We won a race at Keeneland earlier this year, and (Collinsworth) was the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”