Keith Olbermann

Author / sportswriter / radio commentator / TV pundit Keith Olbermann's first book, "The Major League Coaches", was published when he was 14. He began his career as a play-by-play announcer for WHTR while he was still in high school. Beginning college at age 16, he graduated with a Bachelors of Science degree in communications arts from Cornell University at age 20. He began his career at UPI, and then RKO Radio and New York's WNEW until CNN found him in 1981. In 1984, he became a sports anchor in Boston at WCVB-TV, then went to Los Angeles for KTLA-TV and KCBS-TV. While in California, he received 11 Golden Mike Awards for Best Sportscaster and Best Sportscast, and was voted Sportscaster of the Year three times. In 1992, he was part of the team that launched ESPN Radio, and then began what was to become his "signature" post at ESPN SportsCenter. He and Dan Patrick worked together until 1997. Keith then went to MSNBC, where he hosted "The Big Show with Keith Olbermann" and "White House in Crisis". However, he despised doing 24-hour-a-day coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton, and his contract was bought out by Fox to become anchor and executive producer of "The Keith Olbermann Evening News" on Fox Sports Net on Sunday nights. He was also host of Fox's Saturday pregame baseball studio show. In 2001, he left Fox for "other opportunities", and kept a low profile at ABC Radio. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, on New York's World Trade Center affected him profoundly, saying that they "sobered me up" -- he knew five people who died in attacks. He won an 'Edward R. Murrow' Award for reporting from the site for 40 days for his ABC Radio show. After September 11, and while contributing to Salon.com, he published a profound, "Mea Culpa", to ESPN and fellow workers and addressed the burned bridges in his career. He attributed most of his "outbursts" to feelings of "insecurity" and "fear of being blamed". What September 11 also taught him was "If you're 44 years old and you're not smarter than you were when you were at 35 years old or 25 years old, just stay in your room". He is an avid baseball historian and has a collection of at least 35,000 baseball cards. He's received numerous distinguished awards in radio and television broadcasting, including the 1995 Cable Ace Award for Best Sportscaster, 11 Golden Mike Awards for excellence in television and radio, and four Sports Emmy Awards. He has written for dozens of publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, Sports Illustrated and Playboy, and authored a book with his "tag-team partner", Dan Patrick, entitled "The Big Show: A Tribute to ESPN's SportsCenter". He has his own political commentary show, Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann (2003), on MSNBC--one of the highest-rated shows on that network--and hosted that network's coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.