Hoop Dreams: Doris Burke and Bob Picozzi on Basketball and Broadcasting
ESPN’s Doris Burke, who in June will become the first woman to call the NBA Finals, will have a discussion with her friend, former colleague and Seton Hall alum Bob Picozzi about breaking into sports broadcasting.
View the on-demand recording below.
Hosted by the Center for Sports Media within the College of Human Development, Culture, and Media.
The Center’s activities provide students with an interdisciplinary foundation for academic training and theory with practical experience in the rapidly evolving Sports Media industry, while also drawing professional and scholarly attention to the industry’s impact on contemporary social life.
About the Speakers
Doris Burke is a Hall of Fame broadcaster and one of the leading national NBA commentators, having
covered basketball for three decades. Raised in Manasquan, N.J., Burke graduated from
Providence College with a degree in health service administration/social work and
also earned her master’s in education at Providence.
Burke has covered basketball for ESPN since 1991 and has been the recipient of several awards and honors, including the 2017 WISE Women of the Year Award. In 2020, Burke became the first woman to serve as a game analyst for the NBA Finals when she provided commentary on ESPN Radio. Prior to the 2017-18 NBA season, ESPN named Burke to the position of national NBA game analyst, making her the first woman to serve full time in that capacity.
In 2000, she was inducted into the Providence College Hall of Fame, and she received an honorary doctorate from the school in 2005. In 2002, the Institute for International Sport named Burke one of 15 Sports Ethics Fellows and in 2004 inducted her into the Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame. In 2006, she was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 2007 she was honored with the Woman of Excellence Trailblazer Award from the Rhode Island Women’s Center. In 2018, Burke was announced as a recipient of the prestigious Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.
Bob Picozzi is a television and radio announcer who was employed by ESPN and Fox Sports as a play-by-play announcer for college football and basketball. Born in Summit, New Jersey, he is an alumnus of Seton Hall University. He graduated in 1968 from Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame, as well as Seton Hall’s WSOU 89.5 FM Hall of Fame.
In 1978, Picozzi began a 19-year stint at WTNH-TV as sports director. He was the TV play-by-play voice of UConn women’s basketball from 1999-2012. He also called Atlantic 10 football for the Atlantic 10 Network and CAA football for Comcast SportsNet. Picozzi is a four-time winner of the Connecticut Sportscaster of the Year award and received one New England Regional Emmy Award. From 1998 to 2016, he was an ESPN Radio SportsCenter anchor and anchored 62,411 updates. Picozzi began calling college football and basketball for ESPN in 1997 and college basketball for Fox Sports in 2017.
The Picozzi Family Foundation, which is co-sponsoring the event, was formed in 2007 to provide academic scholarships to talented young men and women from Union and Essex Counties and other surrounding communities. Scholarships are awarded to students attending either college or private high school based on academic achievement and financial need.
Established in Fall 2021, the Center for Sports Media within the College of Human Development, Culture, and Media provides an interdisciplinary foundation for academic training and theory with practical experience pertinent to excellence in the Sports Media discipline.