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ABC Sports Commentator
In 1968 Jim McKay became the first sports commentator ever to win an Emmy Award. Since then he has won 12 more, including the 1981-82 Emmy as Outstanding Sports Personality -- Host. McKay is one of the most respected commentators in the history of broadcasting.
His versatility is such that in 1988, he received his 12th Emmy, not as a broadcaster but as the writer of the openings for ABC Sports' coverage of the 1987 Indianapolis 500, the British Open and the Kentucky Derby. He is the only broadcaster to have won Emmys for sports and news broadcasting and for writing. In 1990 he was the recipient of the first-ever Lifetime Achievement in Sports award from the Academy. In 1992 he was the recipient of an Emmy Award in the Individual Achievement category for the ABC Sports special, "Athletes and Addiction: It's Not a Game."
In 1989 McKay received the Peabody Award, which is presented annually to recognize the most distinguished and meritorious public service programming rendered each year on radio and television. In 1990 he was given the Lowell Thomas Award by Capital Cities/ABC.
For the year 1972 he was given two Emmys -- one for his sports coverage and the other for his news reporting of the tragic events surrounding the Black September terrorists' attack on the Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village in Munich. McKay is further distinguished among sports commentators by having received the George Polk Memorial Award for Journalism for his work in Munich. He is extremely proud of that award since only one is given annually in the field of network television.
The West German Federal Republic awarded him the Officer's Cross of the Legion of Merit for his reporting from Munich in 1972. The Austrian Government awarded him the Olympic Medal in 1977 for his work at the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Games. In 1998 he was awarded the Olympic Order, the highest award of the International Olympic Committee.
In October, 1995, he was installed in the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Overall McKay has covered 12 Olympics; all were for ABC, except the 1960 Rome Games, which he hosted for CBS, and the 2002 Winter Gmaes in Salt Lake City for NBC.. He also anchored the coverage of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
He was the first American network sports commentator to visit mainland China and the People's Republic. In 1991 he visited Cuba to interview Fidel Castro.
"ABC's Wide World of Sports" began its second quarter-of-a-century of sports programming in 1986. Jim McKay, who was the program's host on the very first day in April, 1961, has been with "Wide World" ever since. He has traveled some four-and-a-half million miles to cover events for the program, the most successful year-round sports series in the history of television. Over the years McKay has covered more than 100 different sports in 40 different countries, and from Maine to Hawaii in the United States.
Jim McManus (McKay's real name) gave up his job as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun newspapers to join that organization's new TV station, WMAR-TV, in 1947. His was the first voice ever heard on television in Baltimore. He functioned as writer, producer, director, newsman, sports commentator and on-camera personality for WMAR-TV until he came to CBS in New York in 1950, as host of a variety show.
Through the 1950s, sports commentary more and more became his primary assignment for CBS. He was the anchorman for the Masters and PGA Golf Championships, and also covered college football, horse racing and other sports.
In 2001 he was named receiver of the Paul White Award by the Radio and TV News Directors Associates, previously given to such figues as Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. McKay is the first sports commentator to win the award.
In 1987 McKay was elected to The Jockey Club, the governing body of horse racing in America. He became the 96th member of that group. Also in 1987, he was elected to the Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame and received the "Big Sport of Turfdom" Award from the Turf Publicists of America. He is the founder of "The Maryland Million," a million-dollar day of horse racing for Maryland-sired thoroughbreds. He and his wife are minority owners of the Baltimore Orioles baseball franchise.
McKay also was honored for his coverage of horse racing, having received the 1984 Old Hilltop Award from Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland, for "his outstanding coverage of thoroughbred racing for more than 20 years." He also received the Engelhard Award from The Thoroughbred Breeders of Kentucky in 1978 for "his outstanding ability to convey the essence of thoroughbred racing to his television audience." In 1991 he became the first person to receive the Engelhard Award twice. He has won horse racing's lifetime achievement Eclipse award, the sport's highest honor, and is a member of The Thoroughbred Club. He received the Jeff Palmer Award for the Turf Writers of America.
Born in Philadelphia on September 24, 1921, he moved to Baltimore when he was 15. He graduated from Loyola College there, then entered the United States Navy as an officer during World War II. At the war's conclusion, he was captain of a minesweeper. In 1981 he returned to Loyola College to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.
His biography is included in "Who's Who in America."
McKay lives with his wife, Margaret, in Monkton, Maryland. Mrs. McManus is a member of the Board of Trustees of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (her alma mater), and founder of a day care center on the campus, known as A Child's Place. They have a son, Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports; a daughter, Mrs. Alex Guba, a national board-certified counselor; a 23 -year-old grandson, James Fontelieu; Mary's son born in 1982; also a five-year-old granddaughter, Maggie McManus, named for her grandmother and Jackson McManus, born in 2001. When time permits, McKay enjoys playing golf.
McKay is also the author of two books, "My Wide World," published by MacMillan in 1973, and "The Real McKay," by Dutton in 1998.