Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
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Curt Gowdy Jr. may have been born into sports-broadcasting royalty, but he blazed his own trail, becoming one of the most respected and influential production leaders the business has ever seen. From his 29 years producing broadcasts at ABC Sports to his integral role in launching SportsNet New York in 2005, Gowdy has seen it all on both a national and a regional scale.
However, perhaps his finest accomplishment is the fact that a single phrase is uttered over and over by nearly everyone who has served in the truck and in the trenches with Gowdy during his nearly five decades in the industry: I loved working with Curt, says Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Al Michaels.
He was always thoroughly prepared, he adds. In the business of live television, where everything often goes at warp speed, Curt always met the moment. Maybe best of all, the entire production crew was treated with the utmost respect when Curt was in the producer's chair, and they paid him back with their absolute best work. He made everyone around him better.
A winner of 16 National and 27 Regional Emmy Awards, Gowdy spent 29 years at ABC Sports, including a stint as senior coordinating producer for ABC's Wide World of Sports and producer of three World Series, most notably the 1989 Bay Area earthquake Series. He also played key roles in producing coverage of four Olympic Games; 14 Kentucky Derby and 12 other Triple Crown races; numerous Super Bowl pre/postgame and halftime shows; 18 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and 11 World Figure Skating Championships; and 16 Little League World Series.
In 2005, Gowdy shifted his focus to the launch of SNY, where he spent 17 years as senior vice president and executive producer, building an RSN that set a new industry standard. He retired in 2022.
Son of an Icon: Growing Up in the BusinessBorn in Boston, where is his legendary father served as the voice of the Boston Red Sox throughout the 1950s and early '60s, Gowdy Jr. says he had a passion for sports from day one. Once he was old enough, he began accompanying his dad to Fenway Park, where he sat in the booth and fetched him Cokes and popcorn as he called Ted Williams and the rest of the squad on both radio and TV.
Once Gowdy Jr. was old enough, he began accompanying his dad to Fenway Park, where he called Red Sox games.
In 1965, when Gowdy Sr. moved to NBC Sports fulltime - as lead play-by-play announcer for MLB Game of the Week, American Football League, and numerous other properties - his son began serving as a runner on many of his broadcasts in the New England region.
I wanted to absorb as much knowledge as possible about the business by sitting in the truck and learning from some of the best, says Gowdy. By the time I was a young teenager, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be in sports television; I never really thought of doing anything else.
Gowdy Jr. attended Colby College, where he played hockey and lettered his senior year while serving on weekends as a runner for various networks on everything from football to golf. By this point, he says, I had spent enough time in trucks that I knew I wanted to be a producer. I wanted to be on the creative side, not in front of the camera like my dad - not that I could have ever come close to filling his shoes anyway. I knew I wanted to be behind the scenes and tell stories that way.
Along the way, Gowdy Jr. crossed paths with a fellow son of a broadcasting icon: Sean McManus, whose father Jim McKay called Orange Bowls alongside Gowdy Sr. throughout the early '60s. Little did we know that we would both make our careers following in our father's footprints, says McManus, a Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer and former CBS Sports chairman.
Both Curt and I had the blessing and curse to follow our legendary dads into this industry, he adds. Curt excelled on his own merits, took the lessons learned from his dad, and carved out a hall-of-fame career. Curt did so not as Curt Gowdy's son but with his own talent, creativity, professionalism, and expertise.
Production Prodigy: Starting Out at ABC SportsIn fall 1976, Gowdy Jr. became a production assistant at ABC Sports and was immediately thrown into the fray on the broadcaster's top weekly college football game led by Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame producer Chuck Howard and pioneering director Andy Sidaris, with the incomparable Keith Jackson, another Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer, in the booth.
Having worked as a runner while in school, Gowdy Jr. began his professional career as a production assistant for ABC Sports in 1976.
It was almost like Marine bootcamp in that it was sink or swim, recounts Gowdy Jr. You tried to ask as many questions as possible and make sure that you never made the same mistake twice. At the same time, though, you were always welcome to participate and contribute.
I learned a lot from the people above me early on, he continues. I was blessed to work with Chuck and Andy. Chuck would go on to become a great mentor for me and really carved out my career as a producer by giving me opportunities early on.
Within a year, Gowdy Jr. was associate-producing on a variety of telecasts for ABC Sports, including segments for Wide World of Sports, the longest-running and most celebrated anthology show in television-sports history. He was on the fast track to the producer's chair but felt that he needed to round out his talents first. So he took a sidestep, joining the Director's Guild of America and serving as an associate director on a variety of ABC broadcasts.
I wanted to learn how to edit and how to put shows together behind the scenes, he rem
