Sports
Remembering Greg Gumbel: Viewers relied on him from Selection Sunday to ‘One Shining Moment’
The Athletic has live coverage of the 2025 Men’s March Madness Selection Show
Ever the gentleman, Greg Gumbel reached out to offer a welcoming handshake. Ernie Johnson responded with … a fist bump?
The awkward exchange — one Johnson still describes, a decade later, as “so embarrassing” — lasted maybe two seconds. To Johnson, a TV veteran, it felt like an eternity. And yet if it had to happen, for two seconds or 20, it’s agreed that no one other than Gumbel could have handled it so smoothly.
For more than a quarter of a century, Gumbel provided calm in the most chaotic stretch of the sports calendar, gently and seamlessly guiding NCAA Tournament viewers from one thrilling upset to another marquee matchup. He kicked off March Madness each year with the Sunday selection show and ended it by tossing to “One Shining Moment.”
“With certain shows, it’s all about, ‘let’s add a bunch of bells and whistles,’” Johnson told The Athletic. “But on Selection Sunday, all you needed was Greg Gumbel and a bracket. So much goes into running that show but honestly, you could have made it a single camera shoot: Here’s Greg, here’s the bracket, go.”
The tournament is here again, the first since the legendary sportscaster died on Dec. 28 at the age of 78 of cancer. Though he missed last March for the first time since he started in 1998 for undisclosed reasons — which people now know were related to his illness — many hoped he’d be back in studio this spring.
The descriptions of Gumbel from those who knew him best and worked with him longest are flattering and varied: Kind, classy, soothing, charismatic, surprisingly funny. Above all else, unflappable.
Unless, of course, Charles Barkley was in the studio.
“When you can get Greg Gumbel to laugh,” Barkley told The Athletic, “that’s when you know you’re having a good day.”
CBS and Turner merged in 2011, bringing TNT’s “Inside the NBA” crew into NCAA Tournament coverage, letting Barkley loose on college basketball fans, and Gumbel.
“I’ll never forget at the beginning, I’m not in studio anymore, I was back calling games, so I’m watching from the gym and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh what is happening?!’” basketball analyst Clark Kellogg, another mainstay in the CBS studio during the NCAA Tournament, recalled while laughing. “When it became a little bit of a circus, the look on Greg’s face, you could tell he was flummoxed — but only if you’d worked with him and knew him. He was so adaptable, he handled it so well.”
Led by Gumbel — and including Johnson and Clark after he moved back to the studio in 2014 — the new group quickly found a rhythm that worked, even if it continued to involve Barkley being Barkley. One particularly memorable on-air moment: Gumbel laughing uncontrollably in response to Barkley’s bizarre story about showering in his uniform.
According to Gumbel’s daughter, Michelle, her dad loved the chaotic pace of March Madness, and the fact that no script could ever keep up with the “non-stop action.” His widow, Marcy, pointed to her husband appreciating basketball’s unpredictability and that every spring, no matter what teams were ranked, if he called their names during Selection Sunday, they would have “a chance to chase their dream.”
But Gumbel was much more than one of college hoops’ most trusted and reassuring voices. Barkley considered him the king of dad jokes. He loved the Rolling Stones with an unmatched passion, attending more than 50 of their concerts. He despised golf. “It’s a stupid game,” he’d tell anyone who would listen. “You walk around and chase a ball — that’s not a sport!” He had a “huge, special laugh,” as CBS Sports president and CEO David Berson liked to describe it, as recognizable to viewers as much as his on-camera authenticity and warmth.
He was a trailblazer and a rare talent. He was also a husband, dad and grandpa.
Suzanne Smith, CBS Sports’ first female director who worked with Gumbel on football broadcasts starting in the early 1990s, put it this way: “Greg was always the coolest guy in the room — and he never knew it.”
Gumbel’s career accomplishments included being the first Black play-by-play announcer to call a major sporting event when he did so at Super Bowl XXXV in 2001. He won three Emmys, anchored three Olympic Games across two networks and led broadcast coverage of everything from the NFL to the NBA. Not that he ever wanted to brag about it.
“He is an iconic pioneer in the space, but he was so uninterested in talking about it that you’d tend to forget it,” Kellogg said. “It was a revelation even for me, especially as a fellow Black man. I had forgotten some of the trailblazing things he’d done. And believe me, he wasn’t going to tell you.”
At CBS, Harold Bryant became the first Black executive producer to oversee sports at any of the major broadcast networks. Bryant studied how Gumbel handled being “the first” himself.
“He didn’t want to be known as the groundbreaker,” Bryant said. “He wanted to let his presence speak for itself, and I took a lot from that.
“He would just say, ‘I want to be known as the best at my craft.’ By always being the best, he showed that anybody can do this job, it’s not limited to one particular type of person. He didn’t talk about wanting to break the mold.”
Barkley said Gumbel’s talent was always clear.
“For as long as he was in the business — and to go from sport to sport, which can’t be easy — you don’t have that type of career until you’re really, really good,” he said.
Despite sitting in the No. 1 chair, Gumbel never wanted the focus on him.
Years ago after calling a Colts game, Smith, Gumbel and the CBS crew wound up at St. Elmo, the Indianapolis steak house famous for its shrimp cocktail. After the group was told the wait was two, maybe three hours, a few people nudged Gumbel and suggested he drop his name. After all, his photo hung on the celebrity wall.
“He wanted no part of it,” Smith said. Afterward, when the crew insisted he take a photo standing by the photo wall, he was mostly mortified, asking his colleagues, “What are we doing? No one cares who I am!”
Throughout sports media there are “certain broadcasters who have that big-time voice,” Smith said. “Greg Gumbel was one of them. If he was calling it, you knew it was an important, special event.”
Despite that acknowledgment from nearly everyone in sports television, Gumbel constantly deferred to his teammates.
“He did love paving the way for others,” said Berson, the CBS Sports president. “That’s a big part of why he was such a good studio host because he was always looking to tee up his colleagues and make them look good.”
Gumbel understood how to deftly transition from one topic and analyst to another, smoothly taking viewers through an entire rundown. Perhaps best of all for everyone working with him, he never appeared rattled; what viewers experienced in their living rooms is the same thing producers experienced in the production truck and on set.
This was the case no matter the situation — a highlight not working, a promo not being read correctly or Barkley needing to be corralled.
“When we go off the rails, Ernie’s used to it,” Barkley said. “We do it probably 20 times a year with him on TNT. But Greg would only see us once a year and he had to react in real time. There’s a talent to that. He never seemed flustered.”
Numerous people who worked with Gumbel spoke about his ability to crack tension on set, though it never came at someone else’s expense.
Kellogg called him “a closet comedian.” Barkley recalled Gumbel told “10 dad jokes a day, and they were just awful. You never knew if you were laughing because it was funny or because they were so nerdy.”
For as much as Gumbel’s work revolved around sports, the stories imprinted on the minds of colleagues, friends and family are about life and conversations beyond the court or field.
Greg Gumbel was a private man, but his love of the Rolling Stones and his granddaughter, Riley, were no secret. (Courtesy of the Gumbel family)
Michael Gluc worked as Gumbel’s spotter during NFL games for more than two decades. They traded family stories and holiday cards and checked in with each other throughout the offseason. Gluc still catches himself waiting for Gumbel’s regular Friday email sharing dinner plans for the next day in whatever NFL city they were headed to.
“He loved the Stones, everyone knew that, he saw them in concert multiple times. And for 24 years, I couldn’t tell him I liked the Beatles more,” Gluc confessed, laughing. “I didn’t want to disappoint him.”
At the 1992 Winter Olympics, Gumbel’s first as CBS host, he de-boarded the plane in Albertville, France, and noticed Smith struggling. On crutches after breaking her foot, she couldn’t juggle her luggage. Gumbel, who’d yet to meet Smith, rushed to help.
“There were probably 200 people getting off that plane, and this guy is a superstar at CBS, running over to help someone he doesn’t know,” Smith said.
At the 2011 Final Four in Houston, Berson shared a car with Gumbel to Reliant Stadium. Gumbel asked Berson about his interests outside of sports. They spent the entire ride trading book recommendations after discovering they preferred the same suspense authors like Vince Flynn, Harlan Coben and Sue Grafton (Gumbel also recommended John Sandford and Lee Child).
And yet there is no question that the true highlight of Gumbel’s life came in 2012 when his granddaughter Riley was born. Though Gumbel was an intensely private person — numerous people at CBS did not know he’d been diagnosed with cancer until shortly before his death — one topic he never shied from was Riley.
“The pictures and videos,” Kellogg said, “were unceasing.”
Riley’s favorite memories with her grandpa include dance-offs in the kitchen, telling knock-knock jokes and his insistence that she also get familiar with the Rolling Stones.
“He would always send me his favorite songs that he’d think I’d like, and I ended up loving each one,” Riley wrote in an email to The Athletic. “Whenever I hear one of those songs on the radio, such as ‘Brown Sugar,’ I always think of him and how he is communicating with me from above.”
A few years ago, when Riley was in the fifth grade, her school put together a morning show. When it was Riley’s turn to anchor, her parents recorded it and sent it to Grandpa for feedback.
Her next time in front of the camera, she shined.
“I remembered all the things he had taught me,” she said. “Talk slower, pronounce words with diction and always smile.”
As March Madness tips this week, Gumbel’s absence will be felt. Michelle attended her first and only Final Four with her dad in Houston in 2011, proudly “watching him do what he’s always done best.”
“I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to grow up watching my dad all these years,” Michelle said via email. “I will greatly miss his send-offs after calling the game or hosting, saying goodnight with a heartfelt, ‘Goodbye and so long.’”
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Kyle Terada / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
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The group stage is the first step toward World Cup glory.
All 48 nations playing in the 2026 FIFA World Cup have been divided into 12 groups (labeled A-L) of four teams.
With the expanded knockout format of 32 teams advancing past the group stage, winning the group has become more important than ever.
After Germany’s dominant 7-1 win over Curaçao, its odds to win Group E have increased from -210 to -320. Getting three points, combined with gaining a +6 goal differential, has put them in an ideal position after matchday 1.
Ivory Coast also made up a ton of ground after its 1-0 win over Ecuador on Sunday, seeing its odds to win Group E climb from +550 to +260.
Additionally, the U.S. men’s national team’s odds to win Group D saw major movement after its 4-1 win over Paraguay.
USA’s group odds continued to spike after Australia’s upset over Türkiye on Saturday night. Because Türkiye originally had the second-best odds to win the group, their loss had a major impact on the outlook of Group D.
The Stars and Stripes are now -210 to win their group.
Not only did USA’s odds jump, but Australia’s odds to win Group D skyrocketed from +1200 to +300 after its win.
The two nations will play next Friday night at Seattle Stadium for sole possession of first in the group.
Let’s check out the latest odds for all 12 groups at FanDuel Sportsbook, as of June 14.
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Group A winner
Mexico: -165 (bet $10 to win $16.06 total)
South Korea: +170 (bet $10 to win $27 total)
Czechia: +1600 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
South Africa: +8000 (bet $10 to win $810 total)
Group B winner
Switzerland: +110 (bet $10 to win $21 total)
Canada: +160 (bet $10 to win $26 total)
Bosnia: +440 (bet $10 to win $54 total)
Qatar: +2700 (bet $10 to win $280 total)
Group C winner
Brazil: -165 (bet $10 to win $16.06 total)
Morocco: +240 (bet $10 to win $34 total)
Scotland: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Haiti: +15000 (bet $10 to win $1,510 total)
Group D winner
USA: -220 (bet $10 to win $14.55 total)
Australia: +340 (bet $10 to win $44 total)
Türkiye: +700 (bet $10 to win $710 total)
Paraguay: +3000 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
Group E winner
Germany: -320 (bet $10 to win $13.13 total)
Ivory Coast: +260 (bet $10 to win $36 total)
Ecuador: +1400 (bet $10 to win $150 total)
Curaçao: +35000 (bet $10 to win $3,510 total)
Group F winner
Netherlands: +100 (bet $10 to win $20 total)
Japan: +230 (bet $10 to win $33 total)
Sweden: +370 (bet $10 to win $47 total)
Tunisia: +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Group G winner
Belgium: -260 (bet $10 to win $13.85 total)
Egypt: +480 (bet $10 to win $58 total)
Iran: +700 (bet $10 to win $80 total)
New Zealand: +2200 (bet $10 to win $230 total)
Group H winner
Spain: -475 (bet $10 to win $12.11 total)
Uruguay: +440 (bet $10 to win $54 total)
Saudi Arabia: +5000 (bet $10 to win $510 total)
Cape Verde: +5500 (bet $10 to win $560 total)
Group I winner
France: -230 (bet $10 to win $14.35 total)
Norway: +300 (bet $10 to win $40 total)
Senegal: +750 (bet $10 to win $85 total)
Iraq: +10000 (bet $10 to win $1,010 total)
Group J winner
Argentina: -260 (bet $10 to win $13.85 total)
Austria: +380 (bet $10 to win $48 total)
Algeria: +750 (bet $10 to win $85 total)
Jordan: +7000 (bet $10 to win $710 total)
Group K winner
Portugal: -210 (bet $10 to win $14.76 total)
Colombia: +220 (bet $10 to win $32 total)
DR Congo: +2000 (bet $10 to win $210 total)
Uzbekistan: +2700 (bet $10 to win $280 total)
Group L winner
England: -260 (bet $10 to win $13.85 total)
Croatia: +340 (bet $10 to win $44 total)
Ghana: +1200 (bet $10 to win $130 total)
Panama: +3000 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
CHICAGO — Dodgers left-hander Jack Dreyer rubbed a new baseball between his hands as he walked back to the mound, a sold-out Rate Field coming alive around him.
Fireworks crackled over the center-field scoreboard. Digital pinwheels spun. Dreyer had just surrendered his second home run of the inning, transforming a low-scoring battle into a lopsided White Sox advantage.
The Dodgers’ recent bullpen problems persisted in a 6-4 loss Sunday, overshadowing a bounce-back effort from Emmet Sheehan. The Dodgers tried to come back in the ninth, but fell short.
“We’ve gotten bit by the long ball, obviously in Pittsburgh, and here tonight,” said bench coach Danny Lehmann, filling in Sunday for manager Dave Roberts while he attended his daughter’s college graduation. “But overall, it’s more the strike throwing and just getting ahead of guys and doing what they’re supposed to do.”
The Dodgers dropped the series 2-1, marking their first series loss since May 8-10 against the Braves.
Sheehan was charged with three runs in five-plus innings, a massive turnaround coming off the second-shortest start of his career, only rivaled by a planned one-inning outing at the end of last season.
Against the Angels last week, Sheehan threw 49 pitches and recorded just four outs before being pulled.
On Sunday, he didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning.
“He got strike one and then understood when to leave the zone when he needed to,” catcher Dalton Rushing said. “He did a great job of that. I think a couple of those guys picked up on tendencies, jumped on a pitch. I felt they were good pitches. I thought he did his job today and gave us a chance to win.”
Sheehan’s velocity has been an indicator of how synced up his delivery has been on any given start this season.
On Sunday, his 95.1-mph average fastball velocity was 0.7 mph above his season average, according to Statcast — a promising sign. Results followed.
Sheehan retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced, just a hit batter away from perfection. With two outs in the fourth, he gave up a double to Colson Montgomery, on a low line drive up the first-base line, just out of reach of Freddie Freeman as he made a diving attempt.
Dodgers starting pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers against the Chicago White Sox in the first inning Sunday.
(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)
Then against Braden Montgomery, Sheehan worked back from a 2-1 count for an inning-ending strikeout.
Out of Sheehan’s hand, the pitch looked like it was going to cross the plate on the inside corner, about belt high. But as Montgomery started his swing, the firm changeup veered away from his bat at a sharp downward angle.
Montgomery swung over the pitch. A fired-up Sheehan buried his fist in his glove and shouted. With that strikeout, he preserved the Dodgers’ one-run lead.
Freeman provided that run with a solo homer in the first inning. And Sheehan gave the Dodgers plenty of time to extend that lead. In the sixth inning, however, the White Sox finally got to him.
“I definitely felt better early,” Sheehan said. “And then more of the same towards the end. Just pretty frustrating.”
Sheehan’s fastball to Sam Antonacci wasn’t in a bad spot. But in an 0-2 count, he could have put it a little higher or farther inside. Antonacci drove it over the right-field fence.
A single, a stolen base and an RBI double later, Sheehan walked off the mound, the Dodgers trailing 2-1.
Just a few weeks ago, turning the ball over to the Dodgers’ bullpen was a promising move. They were still riding a franchise-record streak of 38 consecutive scoreless innings.
Lately, however, it’s been a rocky ride. The bullpen entered Sunday with a 6.71 ERA since ending that scoreless streak on May 25. Only the Giants and Rockies produced a worse mark over that stretch.
None of the Dodgers’ relievers have been dominant in recent games. Tanner Scott has been credited with three saves but also two losses. Kyle Hurt’s ERA has risen from 0.60 to 4.22. Dreyer, who went 10 straight games without giving up a run before landing on the injured list with left shoulder discomfort, has surrendered five home runs in seven appearances since returning on May 31.
Dreyer gave up three runs and three hits. Then Blake Treinen and Jonathan Hernández held the White Sox the rest of the way.
The Dodgers tacked on three more runs, on a sacrifice fly and an RBI double from Alex Freeland, and a solo homer from Mookie Betts. They stranded runners at the corners in the ninth.
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Former NFL pass rusher Aldon Smith’s last act before his death was donating food for the homeless
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Former NFL pass rusher Aldon Smith spent time on what would be the final day of his life donating food to a charity that feeds the homeless.
The San Francisco 49ers announced on Saturday that Smith, who played in 50 games during his six-year career, died at the age of 36. Just hours before he was found unresponsive, Smith unexpectedly dropped off 10 pizzas to CHAM Deliverance Ministry, a San Jose, Calif., charity that feeds the homeless.
Amir Shirazi, a friend of Smith’s who picked up on Saturday to make the surprise delivery, spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle about the charitable donation before sharing the details of finding him unresponsive in his car.
Aldon Smith of the San Francisco 49ers waits between drills at the team’s first training camp practice Thursday afternoon, July 24, 2014, in Santa Clara, Calif. (Karl Mondon/MediaNews Group/Mercury News via Getty Images)
49ERS ANNOUNCE DEATH OF ALDON SMITH AT 36, ONCE THE FASTEST PLAYER TO REACH 30 SACKS IN NFL HISTORY
“He was a very sweet, caring, loving giant,” Shirazi said. “That if you really knew him, you’d know who he truly is.”
After dropping off the pizzas, Shirazi drove them to a grocery store and then back to his home. He explained to the outlet that he quickly ran inside to turn on some lights, and when he returned to the car, Smith was slumped over in his seat.
San Francisco 49ers Aldon Smith runs during practice at the 49ers training facility in Santa Clara, on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2014. (LiPo Ching/MediaNews Group/Mercury News via Getty Images)
ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!
“I came out and he was basically dead in my front seat,” Shirazi said. “I’m just in shock.”
While Smith has a history of substance abuse, Shirazi said that he had not seen the former NFL player use drugs on Saturday and had only seen him smoke marijuana occasionally over the years. He said he believed that Smith’s death was a “natural death.”
“My impression was that this is a young man that wanted to help the homeless, which was great,” Scott Wagers, the co-founder of CHAM Deliverance Ministry, told the outlet. “When the 49ers and people like that want to help the community, that’s everything.”
Aldon Smith of the San Francisco 49ers suits up for the team’s first training camp practice Thursday afternoon, July 24, 2014, in Santa Clara, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) (Photo by Karl Mondon/MediaNews Group/Mercury News via Getty Images) ((Photo by Karl Mondon/MediaNews Group/Mercury News via Getty Images))
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Smith was drafted seventh overall in the 2011 NFL Draft out of Missouri, and made an immediate impact as a rookie, picking up 14.0 sacks and forcing two fumbles in 16 games. The next year he set a 49ers’ franchise record with 19.5 sacks and was named a First-Team All-Pro while leading the team to Super Bowl XLVII.
Smith reached 30 career sacks in just 27 games, making him the fastest player in NFL history to do so, breaking a record previously held by Hall of Famer Reggie White.
In 2013, Smith voluntarily entered rehab and missed five games. In 2014, he served a nine-game suspension for violations of the NFL’s substance abuse and personal conduct policies.
In 2015, the 49ers released Smith in August following his third DUI arrest before he was signed weeks later by the Oakland Raiders.
Smith remained indefinitely suspended from the NFL for four full seasons while dealing with legal and personal troubles. He made a return in 2020 and played a full season with the Dallas Cowboys, starting in all 16 games.
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