Curt Gowdy Media Awards recipient Mike Breen speaks at the 2020 Basketball Hall of Fame awards tip-off celebration and awards gala Friday, May 14, 2021, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
As a senior in high school, Mike Breen applied to three colleges. He didn’t get into his first choice. On a visit to another, he knew it wasn’t the right fit. That’s why Breen ended up at Fordham University, about a 10-minute drive from his home in Yonkers, N.Y., even though he always thought he would go further away to school. Turns out, that choice played a pivotal role in his highly successful career and to lifelong friendships.
On Wednesday night, Breen will call Game 1 of the NBA finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks, the team he grew up rooting for and the franchise he has broadcast games for the past three decades. It will be the 21st consecutive year Breen will serve as the finals’ play-by-play voice for ABC/ESPN. The network has shuffled analysts but always kept around Breen, who won the prestigious Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.
Breen, who turned 65 last month, is one of many Fordham alums who have had success in sports broadcasting, a source of pride for the Catholic school in the Bronx, N.Y., 15 miles from Madison Square Garden, where Breen will call Games 3 and 4 next Monday and Wednesday nights.
