Christopher Eugene "Chris" Schenkel (August 21, 1923 – September 11, 2005) was an American
sportscasterIn sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
. Over the course of five decades he called play-by-play for numerous sports on
televisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and
radioRadio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, becoming known for his smooth delivery and baritone voice.
Early life and career
Schenkel began his broadcasting career at radio station
WBAAWBAA and WBAA-FM are the call signs for two American radio stations owned by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana—an AM station at 920 kHz and an FM station at 101.3 MHz. Both broadcast from studios in the Edward C...
while studying for a
premedicalDoctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
degree at
Purdue UniversityPurdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
. He worked for a time at
WLBCWLBC-FM is a FM radio station located in Muncie, Indiana. The WLBC call letters were originally used on its AM station at 1340kHz and also used as WLBC-TV Channel 49 before it became public television station WIPB in the 1970s. Its current format is Hot A/C , featuring an adult blend of the 90s,...
in
Muncie, IndianaMuncie is a city in Center Township, Delaware County in east central Indiana, best known as the home of Ball State University and the birthplace of the Ball Corporation. It is the principal city of the Muncie, Indiana, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 118,769...
. After military service in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he resumed sportcasting in
Providence, Rhode IslandProvidence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
. In 1947, he called the first
American footballAmerican football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
game ever broadcast on television (a
HarvardHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
-
ArmyThe United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located at West Point, New York. The academy sits on scenic high ground overlooking the Hudson River, north of New York City...
contest).
In 1952, Schenkel was hired by the
DuMontThe DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
network, for which he broadcast
New York GiantsThe New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
football and hosted DuMont's
Boxing from St. Nicholas ArenaBoxing from St. Nicholas Arena was an American sports program originally broadcast on NBC from 1946 to 1948, and later on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from 1954 to 1956.-Broadcast history:The DuMont version was hosted by Chris Schenkel....
from 1954 to 1956. In 1956, he went to
CBS SportsCBS Sports is a division of CBS Broadcasting which airs sporting events on the American television network. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on West 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street.CBS...
, where he continued to call Giants games, along with
boxingBoxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
, the
Triple CrownThe Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing consists of three races for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses. Winning all three of these Thoroughbred horse races is considered the greatest accomplishment of a Thoroughbred racehorse...
horse racing, and
The MastersThe Masters Tournament, also known as The Masters , is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, it is the first of the majors to be played each year...
golf tournament, among other events. Along with
Chuck ThompsonCharles L. "Chuck" Thompson was an American sportscaster best known for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and the National Football League's Baltimore Colts...
, Schenkel called the
1958The 1958 NFL season was the 39th regular season of the National Football League.The Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants, 23–17, in the first sudden-death overtime in an NFL Championship Game...
NFL Championship GameThe 1958 National Football League Championship Game was played on December 28, 1958 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first ever National Football League playoff game to go into sudden death overtime. The final score was Baltimore Colts 23, New York Giants 17. The game has since...
for
NBCNFL on NBC is the brand given to NBC Sports coverage of National Football League games until 1998, when NBC lost the NFL American Football Conference rights to CBS...
. He was the voiceover talent for the very first
NFL FilmsNFL Films is a Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based company devoted to producing commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentaries on the National Football League, as well as other unrelated major events and awards shows...
production ever made, the
1962 NFL Championship GameThe 1962 National Football League championship game was the 30th NFL title game. The game was played on December 30, 1962 at Yankee Stadium in New York City between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers. The attendance for the game was 64,892. The Packers were coached by Hall of Fame coach...
between the
Green Bay PackersThe Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
and the
New York GiantsThe New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
.
ABC Sports
ABC Sports hired Schenkel in 1965, and there he broadcast
college footballCollege football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
,
Major League BaseballMajor League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
,
NBA basketballThe National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
,
golfGolf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
and
tennisTennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
tournaments, boxing,
auto racingAuto racing is a motorsport involving the racing of cars for competition. It is one of the world's most watched televised sports.-The beginning of racing:...
, and the Summer and Winter
Olympic GamesThe Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
. He also had a long-term assignment covering professional
bowlingBowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
, mainly for the
Professional Bowlers AssociationThe Professional Bowlers Association is the major sanctioning body for the sport of professional ten-pin bowling in the United States. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the PBA membership consists of almost 4,300 members worldwide...
(also known as the
Pro Bowlers TourThe Professional Bowlers Tour, also known as Pro Bowlers Tour, is a broadcast of the Professional Bowlers Association that aired on ABC from 1961 to 1997...
). He covered bowling from the early 1960s until 1997, as it became one of ABC's signature sports for Saturday afternoons. His broadcast partners on the PBA telecasts included
Billy WeluBilly Welu was a famous professional bowler, executive for the Professional Bowlers Association , bowling broadcaster, and a great ambassador for the sport. A founding member of the PBA, he won four PBA titles, including two ABC Masters championships...
(through 1974) and
Nelson "Bo" Burton, Jr.Nelson "Bo" Burton, Jr. is a professional ten-pin bowler and former longtime analyst for the Professional Bowlers Tour on ABC Television. He is the son of Nelson Burton, Sr., who himself was a successful bowler in his day, competing with the likes of Glenn Allison and Billy Welu...
(1975–97).
During his 36 years on The Professional Bowlers Tour, there were occasions when
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
sent Schenkel away to cover other assignments. Strangely, he was away on assignment for the first four of the PBA's televised 300 games. He would eventually witness a 300 game on January 31, 1987 when Houstonian Pete McCordic bowled one in the first match of the Greater Los Angeles Open. Chris told McCordic it was a great moment for him, since he was away all the other times. Chris would witness and call five more televised 300 games.
Contrary to current popular belief, Chris Schenkel, not
Jim McKayJames Kenneth McManus , better known by his professional name of Jim McKay, was an American television sports journalist....
, anchored ABC's
prime timePrime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
coverage of the ill-fated
1972 Summer OlympicsThe 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....
. When the terrorist attacks (otherwise known as the
Munich MassacreThe Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria in southern West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September. Members of Black September...
) occurred, Schenkel was asleep after hosting the previous night's coverage
liveLive television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
from Munich from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. local time. McKay, who was on his way to the Stadium for
track and fieldAt the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, 38 events in athletics were contested, 24 for men and 14 for women. There were a total number of 1324 participating athletes from 104 countries.-Men's events:-Women's events:-Medal table:-References:*...
coverage, was told to return to the ABC studio to report on the situation unfolding at the Olympic Village. Schenkel returned to anchor Olympic coverage after the Games resumed.
Honors
In 1971,
Statesboro, GeorgiaStatesboro is a city in southeast Georgia, United States, and is the county seat and most populous city of Bulloch County. Statesboro has a population of 28,422 and the Statesboro, GA Micropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 70,217...
businessman Charlie Robbins honored Schenkel by developing in his name a scholarship for golf at
Georgia Southern UniversityGeorgia Southern University is a national public university located on a campus in Statesboro, Georgia, USA. Founded in 1906, it is part of the University System of Georgia and is the largest center of higher education in the southern half of Georgia offering 117 academic majors in a comprehensive...
and developed the
Chris Schenkel Intercollegiate Golf Tournament, featuring some of the nation's top college golf teams. The tournament ended after the 1989 because of concerns after it was discovered the golf club hosting the tournament was all white, but was revived in 1999 as the
E-Z-Go Schenkel Invitational. The tournament is regarded as one of college golf's premier intercollegiate tournament in the East.
Chris Schenkel also was the play by play man (with
Bud WilkinsonCharles Burnham "Bud" Wilkinson was an American football player, coach, broadcaster, and politician. He served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of 145–29–4. His Oklahoma Sooners won three national championships and 14...
) for the legendary Nebraska-Oklahoma "Game of the Century" on Thanksgiving Day 1971, as well as the
Sugar BowlThe Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Sugar Bowl has been played annually since January 1, 1935, and celebrated its 75th anniversary on January 2, 2009...
national championship showdown between Notre Dame and Alabama on New Year's Eve 1973 (with Wilkinson and
Howard CosellHoward William Cosell was an American sports journalist who was widely known for his blustery, cocksure personality. Cosell said of himself, "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these...
, in a rare college football appearance). In 1974, Schenkel was replaced by Keith Jackson as ABC's lead play-by-play man for college football telecasts, but Schenkel continued to call college football games for several more years.
Schenkel was named National Sportscaster of the Year four times, and in 1992 he received a lifetime achievement
EmmyAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
. Also in 1992, the
Pro Football Hall of FameThe Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...
presented Schenkel with its
Pete Rozelle Radio-Television AwardThe Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, created in 1989 and named for the late longtime NFL commissioner, is bestowed annually by the Pro Football Hall of Fame "for longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football". Unlike the Baseball Hall of Fame's comparable...
. In 1999, he received the
Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement AwardThe Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest award presented by the Jim Thorpe Association. Without consideration of athletic accomplishments, the award recognizes a lifetime of achievement by people who "set the living examples that influence others to strive for the highest goals and...
.
In 1999, the Professional Bowlers Association named the Player of the Year award after Schenkel.
In a 2009 vote by its members, the
American Sportscasters AssociationAmerican Sportscasters Association was founded in 1979 by broadcaster Dick London and associate attorney Harold Foner as a non profit association to represent sportscasters by promoting and supporting the needs and interests of the professional sports broadcaster.-History:In 1980, Louis O...
ranked Schenkel 25th on its list of the Top 50 Sportscasters of All-Time.
Personal
He was married to former dancer and modeler, Fran Page.
Schenkel had three children, Christina, Teddy, and Johnny. He also has three grandchildren, Christopher, Michael, and Katie.
In 1971, Schenkel, a longtime friend of
Indianapolis Motor SpeedwayThe Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana in the United States, is the home of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race and the Brickyard 400....
owner
Tony HulmanAnton "Tony" Hulman, Jr. was a businessman from Terre Haute, Indiana who rescued the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1945 and made the Indianapolis 500 popular....
, was a passenger in the pace car for that year's Indianapolis 500 race. Astronaut
John GlennJohn Herschel Glenn, Jr. is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. Glenn was a Marine Corps fighter pilot before joining NASA's Mercury program as a member of NASA's original...
and Hulman were also in the car when its driver,
IndianapolisIndianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
-area
DodgeDodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
dealer Eldon Palmer, crashed the 1971
Dodge ChallengerThe Dodge Challenger is the name of three different generations of automobiles marketed by the Dodge division of Chrysler.The first generation Dodge Challenger was a pony car built from 1970 to 1974, using the Chrysler E platform and sharing major components with the Plymouth Barracuda. The second...
convertible into a section of bleachers at the beginning of the race. Someone had moved the flag Palmer had positioned as a braking reference point, leading to the incident that injured twenty-two people, mostly photographers. Schenkel and the car's other occupants were not seriously injured.
Other appearances
Mr. Schenkel appeared (along with Bo Burton) as the bowling announcers in the final match in the 1979 movie
DreamerDreamer is a direct-to-video film that was released on video on April 27, 1979. It was directed by Noel Nosseck, written by Larry Bischof and James Proctor, and stars Tim Matheson as "the Dreamer" and Susan Blakely as Karen...
.
Schenkel appeared as himself in the
1996Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:...
film
KingpinKingpin is a 1996 slapstick comedy film directed by the Farrelly brothers and starring Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, and Bill Murray...
. He played the role of play-by-play announcer in the final match between characters Ernie McCracken and Roy Munson.
Another appearance was in the
19941994 was a significant year in film.The top grosser worldwide was The Lion King, which to date stands as the highest-grossing traditionally-animated film of all time...
film starring
Michael J. FoxMichael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
and
Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
,
GreedyGreedy is a 1994 comedy film starring Michael J. Fox, Kirk Douglas, Phil Hartman and Nancy Travis, directed by Jonathan Lynn and written by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel. The original music score was composed by Randy Edelman...
. He played himself as an announcer of a bowling tournament early in the movie.
Schenkel's voice can be heard on the controversial "Daisy" ad.
External links