NEW YORK, NY - Mary Carillo has been inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2018.
Now working with the Tennis Channel, Carillo has spent her career working with many of the biggest networks in television, including NBC, CBS, ESPN, HBO and TNT, and has long established herself as one of the most recognizable voices in tennis.
Furthermore, her contribution towards HBO’s ‘Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel’ paved the way for her to win a Sports Emmy Award.
Speaking at the ceremony, which was held at the New York Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, she said: “The true blessing in getting this is that there are so many people to thank for it. I certainly need to mention Dick Ebersol for all the Olympics work, and Matt Allen, whose feature unit I’ve gotten to be a part of all these years. Ross Greenburg at HBO, for Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel and all the documentary work he gave me. My agent, Sandy Montag, who has said to me so many times: ‘I’m not sure you’d be interested in this.’ I’m always interested.
“Calling tennis matches through the years, for USA, ESPN, TNT, CBS, NBC and Tennis Channel has brought me great joy.”
Carillo singled out Billie Jean King, the 12-time major winner, for her valuable advice over the years.
“It was Billie who taught me how to behave at work,” she said.
“The first time I was with her at HBO for Wimbledon, 1996, we would finish a show late at night and she’d thank the camera crew, then walk downstairs to the control room and thank them. Then she’d go back to the tape room, introduce herself, ask everybody how it’s going, compliment them on the footage they’d found.
“‘Relationships are everything,’ she always says. That’s the best television lesson I’ve ever learned.”
Among the other 2018 inductees were 28-time Emmy Award winner Bob Costas, ESPN basketball commentator Dick Vitale and Jim Nantz of CBS Sports.
