By Joe Reedy
Bryant Gumbel will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during the 44th Annual Sports Emmy Awards on May 22 in New York, The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced Tuesday.
Gumbel's career has spanned more than 50 years on NBC, CBS and HBO. He has hosted "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" on HBO since 1995. It has received 36 Sports Emmys.
"It's very humbling. I've been a fortunate, lucky guy," said Gumbel, who is the first Black journalist to receive the award. "It makes you stop and take stock. You take a look at the guys who I admire a great deal who received this award, people like Vin Scully, Jim McKay and Howard Cosell. You never want to put yourself in their company, but it's heady stuff."
Gumbel started as the sports anchor at KNBC in Los Angeles before joining NBC Sports in the fall of 1975. He served as host of the network's NFL, baseball and NCAA Tournament coverage, including the famed 1979 title game between Magic Johnson's Michigan State and Larry Bird's Indiana State. He moved to NBC News in January 1982 to host the "Today" show, a role he had for 15 years.
Gumbel was the prime-time host of NBC's coverage of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He was originally slated to be the prime-time host for the 1980 Moscow Games until the United States boycotted them.
In 1997, Gumbel went to CBS News to host his own prime-time program. He also had a stint as host of "The Early Show" before departing in 2002.
"Bryant has a storied career, from his start as a sportscaster in Los Angeles to five decades of celebrated work — every bit cementing him as an icon and trailblazer in sports and entertainment," Adam Sharp, president and CEO of NATAS, said in a statement. "Bryant's incredible resume and many other projects has brought dramatic and human news and sports stories to life for audiences throughout his career, making him a clear front-runner for this distinct honor."
The one story from "Real Sports" that still resonates for Gumbel is the 2003 feature and interview with Marcus Dixon, who received a 10-year prison sentence for having sex with an underage girl. Georgia's Supreme Court reversed the aggravated child molestation conviction but ruled that the statutory rape conviction would stand. Dixon had served the one-year sentence for that charge.
Dixon was a Black 18-year-old and one of the top football prospects in the state of Georgia when a 15-year-old girl, who was white, accused him of rape.
"I always point to that because it did everything one can ask in a story," Gumbel said. "It was compelling story, but it basically saved and changed a young man's life. It also righted a wrong, and that's about all you can expect to do when you are in a position like we are in. You try to find something where you can do some good and help somebody else."
Gumbel did another profile of Dixon in 2021 when he was an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Rams. Dixon is now the defensive line coach with the Denver Broncos.
"I've always been a sports fan, but I've always been less interested in the scores than I was the story elements of sports," the 74-year old Gumbel said of "Real Sports," which airs monthly. "I'm overly selfish about it, but I'm enormously proud of it."
Joe Reedy is an AP sports writer
Sean “Diddy” Combs seeks bail, citing changed circumstances and new evidence
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a new request for bail on Friday, saying changed circumstances, along with new evidence, mean the hip-hop mogul should be allowed to prepare for a May trial from outside jail.
Lawyers for Combs filed the request in Manhattan federal court, where his previous requests for bail have been rejected by two judges since his September arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He has been awaiting a May 5 trial at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.
In their new court filing, lawyers for Combs say they are proposing a "far more robust" bail package that would subject the entertainer to strict around-the-clock security monitoring and near-total restrictions on his ability to contact anyone but his lawyers. But the amount of money they attach to the package remains $50 million, as they proposed before.
They also cite new evidence that they say "makes clear that the government's case is thin." That evidence, the lawyers said, refutes the government's claim that a March 2016 video showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend occurred during a coerced "freak off," a sexually driven event described in the indictment against Combs.
They wrote that the encounter was instead "a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship" between Combs and his then-girlfriend.
The lawyers argued that the jail conditions Combs is experiencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn violate his constitutional... Read More