March 30, 2022 — On Friday, April 29, Marist College’s Center for Sports Communication will honor legendary journalist Bob Costas with its Third Bi-Annual Lifetime Excellence in Sports Communication Award. Costas, long the face of NBC Sports and a continued presence in national sports media, will receive the award at The Pierre Hotel in New York City.

Established in 2015, the Lifetime Excellence in Sports Communication Award raises funds to support the Marist College Center for Sports Communication. The previous recipients were Bryant Gumbel and Hannah Storm in 2015 and 2017, respectively. This third award gala was postponed by two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Costas has played a prominent role in the coverage of every major sport over the past four decades. He helmed NBC’s Olympic TV coverage twelve times, hosted seven Super Bowls, and has contributed to seven World Series and ten NBA Finals. He was also part of NBC’s presentations of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes horse races, as well as the U. S. Open Golf Championship. More recently, Costas has appeared on MLB Network, TBS, and hosted his own sports talk show, Back on The Record, on HBO.

Costas is among the most acclaimed television sports journalists of all time: he has won 29 Emmy awards—more than any sports broadcaster. His versatility has been recognized with awards and nominations in the categories of hosting, play-by-play, writing, journalism, news, and entertainment. He is the only person ever to have won Emmys in news, sports, and entertainment. His news Emmy was awarded for his 2011 interview with Jerry Sandusky, the central figure in the Penn State scandal. His entertainment Emmy came in 1993 for his late-night program, “Later with Bob Costas.”

"The Marist award is important, specifically because of the journalism aspect of it,” said Costas. “It’s not exclusively what I do but I like to think it’s always been a part of what I do. To think that people, who pay attention to that sort of thing, have taken notice that even though in many ways I’ve been a conventional mainstream broadcaster, I’ve also tried to bring an element of journalism to it. That’s a small point of pride for me."

Costas has been named “National Sportscaster of the Year” a record eight times and in 2012 he was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Also in 2012, he received the Walter Cronkite Award for distinction in journalism, an honor only one other sports broadcaster holds.

In 2000, his book, Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball, spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

A native of Queens, New York, Costas grew up on Long Island and attended Syracuse University. He began his professional career at WSYR-TV and radio in 1973 while studying at Syracuse and joined KMOX radio in St. Louis in 1974.

“Bob Costas was selected for this honor because his work embodies what all sports journalism should be first and foremost: excellent journalism,” said Jane McManus, Director of the Center for Sports Communication. “Bob has distinguished himself in every way. He’s a strong interviewer whose love of sports is evident, but that has not stopped him from tackling difficult issues with the highest degree of journalistic integrity. That is what we strive to teach our students.”

The Lifetime Excellence in Sports Communication Award dinner will be held at The Pierre in New York City. Corporate event sponsorship opportunities and individual tickets are available. Net proceeds from the event will be used to expand the endowment for the Center for Sports Communication at Marist. To learn more, contact the Marist Office of College Advancement at (845) 575-3283 or click here. 

About the Marist Center for Sports Communication

Marist’s Center for Sports Communication is part of the College’s School of Communication and the Arts, in which students can major in Communications with a minor in Sports Communication. The concentration in Sports Communication requires that students read and analyze sports in new ways, critically examining the role of sports in society and considering such areas as gender, race, and public policy in the context of sports. The program combines ethical and theoretical depth with practical writing and public presentation skills. It prepares students for careers in sports information and journalism through academic coursework, experiential learning, and required internships.