On Sunday mornings, James Brown ’73 sits at the middle of certainly one of sports activities media’s most recognizable studio desks, guiding fast-paced conversations about touchdowns, turnovers, and playoff races. For Brown, the longtime host of CBS’s The NFL Today and The James Brown Show, his job has by no means been nearly soccer.
Brown’s profession in broadcasting spans greater than 4 a long time. After graduating from Harvard in 1973, he started masking NBA video games in 1984. Brown then moved into nationwide TV roles with CBS Sports, the place he referred to as NFL and school basketball video games and reported on main occasions, together with the NBA Finals and the Olympics.
He later grew to become the face of Fox NFL Sunday earlier than returning to CBS in 2006 to host The NFL Today, a task he has held ever since. A 3-time Emmy Award winner, Brown has hosted the Super Bowl a file 10 instances and has been inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
“There is the undeniable intersection of sports and culture,” Brown stated.
For Brown, the intersection extends past the video games themselves. It reveals up in the manner sports activities mirror, and generally amplify, bigger conversations about race, politics, and id.
Throughout the a long time that he has spent broadcasting, Brown has turn out to be identified throughout America not just for his regular presence but in addition for his eloquence in the moments when conversations shift. In these cases, when sports activities highlights evolve into extra severe conversations, Brown’s tasks lengthen past moderating.
In current years, Brown has addressed points like rising antisemitism and fostered broader conversations round racial justice on air. His efforts exemplify instances when sports activities present a platform for confronting discrimination and navigating historical past, demonstrating the civic accountability that public figures must their viewers.
In such circumstances, Brown doesn’t take into consideration rankings, however somewhat about accountability.
“I’m not looking for clicks, I’m not looking for acceptance, [or] to have people come pat me on the back. I just want them to say that it was honest, it was fair, it was thoughtful, and something that we ought to talk about and think about ourselves,” he stated.
That mindset, Brown defined, didn’t emerge in a single day. It was in-built Cambridge. As a scholar at Harvard, Brown discovered himself surrounded by individuals who challenged his pondering in and out of the classroom.
“It was an awesome experience being around so many very brilliant people across the spectrum,” he stated.
What stood out most, he recalled, was not simply the depth of the classroom but in addition the variety of views on campus, which he believes ready him for a profession constructed on listening as a lot as talking.
“I love the fact that the administration was very intentional in ensuring that they had as diverse a population as possible to prepare us for entering a world that is just that,” Brown stated.
That paradigm additionally formed the manner he considered his future. Recruited by greater than 150 faculties for basketball, Brown finally selected Harvard, regardless of the Ivy League’s absence of athletic scholarships, due to the long-term basis it provided.
A standout on the court docket, he was a three-time All-Ivy League choice and completed his profession with 1,242 factors and 747 rebounds, nonetheless rating amongst the high performers in program historical past. He additionally holds the program file for discipline objectives made in a single recreation — 18 towards Boston University in 1972 — and was later inducted into the Harvard Varsity Club Hall of Fame.
That success on the court docket, Brown defined, went hand-in-hand with the bigger function his mother and father had emphasised.
“The only mantra was, go to the best school you possibly can to lay the most solid foundation for success in the game of life,” he stated.
Brown’s determination to attend Harvard mirrored a lesson that continues to form his work in sports activities broadcasting right this moment: success is not only about particular person achievement, however about how that achievement is used.
“Everybody is given a gift,” with the hope that “those gifts will be used for the benefit of a whole,” Brown stated.
That philosophy reveals up most clearly when the conversations transfer past sports activities. When Brown prepares to handle present political, cultural, and social occasions on air, his course of turns into extra deliberate. He depends much less on stats and storylines and extra on doing the work, studying, listening, and talking instantly with related communities earlier than occurring air.
“I try to keep in mind [to] make certain that I’m relevant in what I’m saying, that I’m speaking to the issues as they really exist,” he defined.
That preparation, Brown stated, means getting the details proper and pondering fastidiously about easy methods to say them.
“I try to make certain that I am factually accurate in stating what the issue is that I’m about to comment on with a very respectful tone,” he added.
It is a cautious steadiness. Brown is acutely conscious that many viewers tune in to sports activities protection for an escape from politics and controversy.
“There are a number of people who don’t like it, period, because they’re tuning into sports for a getaway,” he defined.
Still, when the alternative arises for Brown to interact with extra controversial subjects, he does so intentionally, to not provoke hate or anger, however to ask severe thought and reflection.
“I don’t try to come in a derogatory, demeaning, dictatorial fashion. Who am I to do that?”
Instead, Brown goals to create an area for dialog, one that’s grounded in shared rules even throughout political, cultural, and spiritual variations. His method was particularly evident in November of 2022, when Brown was requested by community management to handle rising antisemitism on The NFL Today, following controversy surrounding NBA star Kyrie Irving’s promotion of a movie broadly criticized for Holocaust denial. Before talking publicly on tv, he made some extent of listening to the affected communities.
“I wanted to talk to a number of Jews across the spectrum,” Brown stated.
To successfully talk the seriousness of Holocaust denial, Brown drew a parallel rooted in his personal neighborhood’s historical past.
“To suggest that the Holocaust never occurred was akin to saying that many of my forefathers were not lynched, and they were, so that’s why, even as painful and as hurtful as raw as it is, I would dare say we should not try to whitewash what has happened in history,” Brown stated. “As the old expression goes, to be ignorant of one’s history lays the groundwork for the possible repeating of such, and that just can’t be.”
This method has formed the manner Brown does his job on air. Whether moderating a panel on The NFL Today or guiding a dialog that strikes past the recreation, he returns to the identical purpose: to say one thing significant, and to say it in a manner viewers are prepared to listen to.
“I just want them to say that was honest, it was fair, it was thoughtful,” he stated.
On Sunday mornings, the conversations transfer shortly. Segments finish, highlights roll, and the broadcast strikes ahead. Still, James Brown is considering one thing extra everlasting, the sort of message that may stick to folks lengthy after a recreation is over.
—Staff author Tamar H. Scheinfeld will be reached at [email protected].