Bad break at CBA was big break
Schenectady’s Joe Tessitore lands one of broadcasting’s top jobs, “Monday Night Football”
Joe Tessitore’s break into sports broadcasting came as the result of a broken leg.
He was a freshman at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany when his career path took an ugly twist. During a football scrimmage Tessitore’s left leg got caught under a defender. “I did the 360 spin to go forward,” he said, “and my left foot did not.”
Tessitore’s ankle and lower leg “broke into about 100 pieces,” and that was the end of his dreams of playing football.
In his 17th year at ESPN, Tessitore isn’t sure where his career might have gone if not for the declaration of the late Aloysius Myers, a Christian brother at CBA, shortly after the catastrophic injury.
“I remember Brother Al, when I got out of the hospital, saying, ‘After school today, you’re going to be on the speech and debate team,’ ” he said. “I look at the guy like, ‘I am?’ That guy changed my life because he
wouldn’t let me feel sorry for myself.
“That Saturday, I did an oratory performance, and I ended up winning the thing in a small little speech and debate contest, and it gave me this confidence that I could do something, even though football was taken away from me. If it wasn’t for that guy, I would never be a broadcaster. There’s absolutely no way.”
It is the beginning of a story that has taken Tessitore, born at Bellevue Hospital in Niskayuna, from the Italian neighborhoods of Schenectady to one of the top jobs in sports broadcasting.
Tessitore, 47, is only the sixth play-by-play announcer in the 49-year history of “Monday Night Football,” the NFL’S original prime-time show.
He will work with rookie analysts Jason Witten and Booger Mcfarland, returning sideline reporter Lisa Salters and a veteran production crew on Monday night in Oakland, where the Raiders play host to the Los Angeles Rams on ESPN.
“Not only does Joe have a passion for football, he has an unbelievable work ethic and is an unbelievable teammate,” said Stephanie Druley, ESPN’S senior vice president of event and studio production, who was part of the hiring process.
Tessitore caught other breaks along the way.
He grew up worshiping his neighbor, Tony Dicocco, who coached Scotia High football for 32 years before his retirement in 2005. Tessitore said he also used to jump the fence along Nott Street in Schenectady to watch Union College football practice.
When Tessitore enrolled at Boston College in 1989, then-coach Jack Bicknell and his staff, aware of his injury history, invited the teenager to attend practice at any time.
“I would often sit with area and regional scouts, and it was almost like getting a degree in football,” said Tessitore, whose son, John, is a freshman kicker/punter for Boston College. “One of the guys I would sit with was (Dallas Cowboys coach) Jason Garrett’s dad, who was a scout at the time. I would sit with all these football guys and watch Coach (Jack) Bicknell’s practice and take it in. It was an awesome four years.”
He also became acquainted with Scott Murray, who lived down the street from Tessitore’s family. Murray was a sports anchor at WAST (now WNYT, NBC-13) between 1976 and 1980 and used to take “Joey,” who hadn’t turned 10, to the station to show him the set, sports department and control room.
That relationship led to Tessitore getting a college internship at a TV station in Dallas, where Murray eventually settled.
“I said, ‘Everything we can teach him, let him learn,’ ” Murray said. “I’d take him out on stories, he’d work with producers, he saw this, saw that.”
“The guys were awesome,” Tessitore said. “I could do everything.
I’d be out working Texas Rangers postgame and gathering sound bites of Nolan Ryan and covering the Cowboys. I went down every break I had. That was like getting my graduate degree while I was still finishing up my undergraduate stuff at BC.”
Through his tenure at ESPN and his time before that, which included a stint as weekend sports anchor at WRGB (CBS6) in 1994, Tessitore has filled many roles in the broadcast business. He has been behind the microphone for boxing, horse racing, college basketball. He even did New Year’s Eve specials for five years and was co-host for ABC’S remake of “Battle of the Network Stars” in 2017.
“I know that he had the passion to do it, but he really worked hard at it,” Murray said.
The role Tessitore has now is among the most coveted in the industry as he follows the lead of Keith Jackson, Frank Gifford, Al Michaels, Mike Tirico and Sean Mcdonough.
“‘Sunday Night Football’ and ‘Monday Night Football,’ the way I view the world of sports broadcasting, are the only two jobs where you have to take a step back and say to yourself, that’s a ‘wow’ moment,” Tessitore said. “That’s the job at our place, and I’m fortunate that that call came my way.”
Tessitore was in his second season on his network’s No. 2 college football broadcast team, which generally worked a Saturday night game on ESPN and called one of the College Football Playoff semifinal games.
Former NFL coach Jon Gruden, who had been the Monday Night analyst the previous 10 years, left to coach the Oakland Raiders.
ESPN decided it was time to start fresh, moving Mcdonough, after two years on MNF, to the Saturday prime-time college package and giving Tessitore the reins to its most expensive and prized property.
Why Tessitore?
“Joe Tessitore, to me, is an incredible storyteller, (and has) great command of the game,” Jay Rothman, MNF lead producer, said. “I like to say he’s a cross between Frank Sinatra and a young Brent Musburger. That’s what I feel when I’ve worked with Joe.”
“He’s got more energy than any human being that I’ve met in my entire life,” said Jimmy Pitaro, who became ESPN’S president in March and was part of the hiring process. “I’ve always loved his voice. He’s got a compelling, clear, crisp voice.
He’s a fun person to be around. We felt strongly that whoever we put next to him would be able to quickly form a bond with Joe. He’s that kind of guy. He gets along with everyone.”
Under Rothman’s watchful eye, Tessitore did 13 in-house auditions with various candidates to replace Gruden. Witten, who retired after a 16-year career as a Cowboys tight end once he accepted the job, and Mcfarland, a former defensive lineman who already was a studio analyst at the network, auditioned separately, on back-to-back days.
“We saw quickly Joe and Jason and Booger form this bond that we were looking for,” Pitaro said.
“Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football, the way I view the world of sports broadcasting, are the only two jobs where you have to take step back and say to yourself, that’s a ‘wow’ moment. That’s the job at our place, and I’m fortunate that that call came my way.” — Joe tessitore
Though a neophyte to pro football play-by-play, Tessitore has called college football since his arrival at Bristol in 2003.
Bryan Curtis of The Ringer, a sports and pop culture website, recently wrote a 4,250-word Tessitore profile entitled, “Why ESPN Chose Joe Tessitore to Rebuild Its Relationship With the NFL.”
That headline causes Tessitore, who stresses the team aspect of the MNF crew, to cringe.
“That’s as far away from anything I want to discuss,” he said. “We just want to put our heads down and humbly work.
“If you look around at the landscape of sports
TV, the NFL is king. The reason these stories get written is the NFL is king. We’re not out to save anything. We’re just out to do a good broadcast and have people like us and feel good about spending their Monday nights with us.”
He just wants to be an average Joe, proud of his Italian heritage and Schenectady upbringing and the Capital Region culture.
Even as a toddler, Tessitore said, he was taken to Saratoga Race Course. All family members could read a racing form. His uncle Phil hit a $64,000 trifecta in the 1970s. Sports, Tessitore said, was a way “to speed the assimilation process to American culture.”
“My family is Schenectady to the core,” Tessitore said. “Home
Style Pizza on Union Avenue is my Aunt Ida and my Uncle Anthony and my cousin Paulie. Mont Pleasant Bakery was my Uncle Mike. My mother came to this country with eight brothers and sisters and came to Schenectady, New York, so I grew up with all of my cousins and aunts and uncles in the Italian neighborhood of Schenectady — St. Anthony’s Church, Jay Street, Perreca’s bread, Carrie Street, Home Style Pizza.
“Schenectady is just a great place to come from. It also gave me great ability to be comfortable around any atmosphere in life and broadcasting. Whether I’m sitting there in meetings with team owners and CEOS and executives, or whether I’m dealing with players who have hardened backgrounds who have overcome adversity, I do think it benefited me greatly. It makes me relatable.”
It also was a place for dreams. They don’t always go the way you want, but what youngster thinks about broadcasting over playing?
“If you told me I could play (football) at CBA and then play at Union, that would be my life’s dream,” Tessitore said. “Instead, an injury and a Christian brother puts me down a path where I end up heading up ‘Monday Night Football.’ Things worked out a little better.