Robert Lee (sports announcer)

Last updated

Robert Lee
Born1976/1977(age 44–45)
EducationBS (Broadcast Journalism)
Alma mater Syracuse University
Occupationsports announcer
Years active2000-present
EmployerESPN, Time Warner and Siena College
Children1
Sports commentary career
Genre(s) Play-by-play
Sports College Football, College basketball, High School football

Robert Lee is an American sportscaster for ESPN. [1]

Contents

Early life

From 1995 to 1999, Lee attended Syracuse University. He received his B.S. in Broadcast Journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Early career

Lee was formally the Assistant Sports Information Director for Siena College. He was the main primary television, newspaper and radio media contact for seven of Siena's athletic programs. [2] Lee was also a daily television show host for Capital OTB during 2012 Saratoga horse racing season. There he conducted interviews with trainers, jockeys and other horse professionals.

Sports broadcasting

Since 2000, Lee has been the play-by-play announcer for Siena's Men’s Basketball team on television and radio. He also hosted a weekly radio show with interviews with Siena's basketball coaches. As well as calling men's basketball for Siena's Men's Basketball team, Lee also is an announcer for Time Warner and ESPN. Lee started announcing football and basketball games for Time Warner in 2003 and for ESPN in 2016. In his time at ESPN, Lee has called games online for ESPN 3 or on national television for ESPNU. Lee has called games for conferences including the Big South, MAAC, Ohio Valley Conference, ACC, American Athletic Conference and the A-10. He has also called several FCS football playoff games. [3]

Removal from University of Virginia game assignment

In August 2017, after the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee turned violent, ESPN removed Lee from covering the September 2 football game at the William&Mary-Virginia game in Charlottesville, reassigning him to the Youngstown State-Pittsburgh game. [1] [4] The decision was leaked to Clay Travis's website Outkick the Coverage, [5] [6] and had some ridicule on social media. [7] ESPN released a statement saying the assignment switch came "simply because of the coincidence of his name." [4]

Personal life

Lee currently lives in Albany, New York with his wife and daughter. He is fluent in Mandarin. [8]

Related Research Articles

Kirk Herbstreit American football player and analyst

Kirk Edward Herbstreit is an American analyst for ESPN's College GameDay, a television program covering college football, a provider of color commentary on college football games on ESPN and ABC, and on Thursday Night NFL games on Prime Video. For his TV work, Herbstreit has won five Sports Emmy Awards in various categories. He also appeared annually as a commentator in EA Sports' NCAA Football until the series was put on hiatus following NCAA Football 14. From 1989 to 1993, Herbstreit was a quarterback for the Ohio State football team. He played in several games his junior season and was the starting quarterback throughout his senior season.

John Paul Jones Arena

John Paul Jones Arena, or JPJ, is a multi-purpose arena owned by the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since November 2006, it serves as the home to the Virginia Cavaliers men's and women's basketball teams, as well as for concerts and other events. With seating for 14,593 fans John Paul Jones Arena is the largest indoor arena in Virginia and the biggest Atlantic Coast Conference basketball arena located outside of large metropolitan areas. Sports Illustrated named John Paul Jones Arena the best new college basketball arena of the 2000s.

Sean McDonough is an American sportscaster, currently employed by ESPN and WEEI Red Sox Radio Network.

University Hall (University of Virginia)

University Hall was an 8,457-seat multi-purpose arena on the University of Virginia Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia. The arena opened in 1965 as a replacement for Memorial Gym; it was demolished on May 25, 2019, with Ralph Sampson leading the demolition. Like many arenas built at the time, the arena was circular, with a ribbed concrete roof and blue and orange seats that surrounded the arena. Unlike many other facilities, however, the floor was never lowered for additional seating around the court, which left large areas behind press row, the team benches, and the announcer's table empty during games.

Jason Lee Whitlock is an American sports journalist and culture critic. Whitlock is a columnist, podcaster and TV host for the conservative media company Blaze Media, where he hosts the show Fearless with Jason Whitlock. Whitlock is a former columnist at the Kansas City Star, AOL Sports, Foxsports.com, and ESPN. He was a radio personality for WHB and KCSP sports stations in the Kansas City area. Whitlock played Division I college football at Ball State as an offensive lineman. In addition to sports, he has written about political and societal issues.

SNY (TV network) Regional sports network

SportsNet New York (SNY) is an American regional sports network owned by Sterling Entertainment Enterprises, LLC, itself a joint venture between the Fred Wilpon Sterling Equities, Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016 and Comcast, through its NBC Sports Group subsidiary. The channel primarily broadcasts games and related programming involving the New York Mets, but also carries supplementary coverage of the Mets and the New York Jets as well as college sports events.

Souths Oldest Rivalry College football rivalry game

The South's Oldest Rivalry is the name given to the North Carolina–Virginia football rivalry. It is an American college football rivalry game played annually by the Virginia Cavaliers football team of the University of Virginia and the North Carolina Tar Heels football team of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Both have been members of the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1953, but the Cavaliers and Tar Heels have squared off at least fifteen more times than any other two ACC football programs. Virginia and North Carolina also have extensive rivalries in several other sports.

Tony Bennett (basketball) American basketball coach and player (born 1969)

Anthony Guy Bennett is an American former professional basketball player and since 2009 the men's basketball head coach at the University of Virginia, with whom he won the NCAA Championship in 2019. Bennett is a three-time recipient of the Henry Iba Award, two-time Naismith College Coach of the Year, and two-time AP Coach of the Year. Bennett holds records for career winning percentage and single-season wins at Washington State as well as Virginia, and is one of three coaches in history to lead his program to ten consecutive winning ACC records. Bennett is also one of three coaches to receive the ACC Coach of the Year award four or more times.

Bob Carpenter (sportscaster) American sportscaster and announcer

Bob Carpenter is an American sportscaster and current television play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals on MASN. Carpenter was born in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from William Cullen McBride High School. He attended the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and later graduated with honors from the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a bachelor's degree in Radio-TV-Film.

2009 NCAA Division I Mens Basketball Tournament United States top collegiate-level basketball tournament for 2009

The 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament was a single-elimination tournament in which 65 schools competed to determine the national champion of the men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2008–09 basketball season. The tournament began on March 17, 2009, and concluded with the championship game on April 6 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, where the University of North Carolina defeated Michigan State to become the champion. The 2009 tournament marked the first time for a Final Four having a minimum seating capacity of 70,000 and by having most of the tournament in the February Sweeps of the Nielsen Ratings due to the digital television transition in the United States on June 12, 2009, which also made this the last NCAA Basketball Tournament, in all three divisions, to air in analog television. The University of Detroit Mercy hosted the Final Four, which was the 71st edition.

Dave OBrien (sportscaster) American sportscaster

David O'Brien is an American sportscaster who is a lead play-by-play announcer on the New England Sports Network (NESN) for telecasts of the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball (MLB), and for college football and college basketball games aired on the ESPN Inc.-owned ACC Network. He has previously broadcast for MLB's Atlanta Braves, Florida Marlins, and New York Mets, and has announced other sports including basketball, football, and soccer.

Big Ten Network American collegiate sports network

Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American sports network based in Chicago, Illinois. The channel is dedicated to coverage of collegiate sports sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference, including live and recorded event telecasts, news, analysis programs, and other content focusing on the conference's member schools. It is a joint venture between Fox Sports and the Big Ten, with Fox Corporation as 51% stakeholder and operating partner, and the Big Ten Conference owning a 49% stake. It is headquartered in the former Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalog House building at 600 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago.

Clay Travis American sports journalist

Richard Clay Travis is an American political commentator, sports journalist, writer, lawyer, radio host, television analyst, media personality and founder of OutKick. He and Buck Sexton are hosts of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, a three-hour weekday conservative talk show which debuted on June 21, 2021 as the replacement of The Rush Limbaugh Show on many radio stations.

College Basketball Invitational

The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) is a men's college basketball tournament created in 2007 by The Gazelle Group. The inaugural tournament occurred after the conclusion of the 2007–08 men's college basketball regular season. The CBI selects 16 teams that are not selected for the NCAA Tournament or the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), and who are willing to pay a $50,000 entry fee to participate. In the CBI, prior to 2020 teams competed on home courts. After the post-COVID pandemic revival, the tournament has been staged at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. The CBI is a single-elimination tournament. Prior to 2020, the tournament was single elimination until the final two teams were determined, after which the championship was determined by a championship series with a best-two-out-of-three format. Since the tournament's 2021 revival and adoption of the single-site format, the championship is also determined by a single game.

ESPN College Basketball is a blanket title used for presentations of college basketball on ESPN and its family of networks. Its coverage focuses primarily on competition in NCAA Division I, holding broadcast rights to games from each major conference, and a number of mid-major conferences.

William B. Roth is an American television and radio sportscaster. Longtime play-by-play voice of Virginia Tech Hokies football and men's basketball from 1988 to 2015, Roth also served as an announcer for the Richmond Braves from 1993–96, and spent 2015-16 with the UCLA Bruins before joining ESPN in 2016.

Pac-12 Network College sports television network

The Pac-12 Network is an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by the Pac-12 Conference. The network's studio and production facilities are headquartered in the South of Market district of San Francisco, California.

2014 Virginia Cavaliers football team American college football season

The 2014 Virginia Cavaliers football team represented the University of Virginia in the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Cavaliers were led by fifth year head coach Mike London and played their home games at Scott Stadium. They were members of the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Unite the Right rally 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia

The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Far-right groups participated, including self-identified members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and various right-wing militias. Some groups chanted racist and antisemitic slogans and carried weapons, Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols, the Valknut, Confederate battle flags, Deus vult crosses, flags, and other symbols of various past and present anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic groups. The organizers' stated goals included the unification of the American white nationalist movement and opposing the proposed removal of the statue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's former Lee Park.

2017–18 Virginia Cavaliers mens basketball team American college basketball season

The 2017–18 Virginia Cavaliers men's basketball team represented the University of Virginia during the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The team was led by head coach Tony Bennett in his ninth year, and played their home games at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

References

  1. 1 2 de Menezes, Jack (August 23, 2017). "ESPN remove Asian-American presenter Robert Lee from Charlottesville game as name is same as Confederate general". The Independent. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  2. Pete Dougherty (August 22, 2017). "Ex-Siena announcer pulled off ESPN assignment because of his name — Robert Lee". Times Union. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  3. "Robert Lee, ESPN Announcer: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know". Heavy.com. August 23, 2017. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Gentille, Sean (August 23, 2017). "Robert Lee, pulled off UVA game, is coming to Pittsburgh". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  5. Stelter, Brian (August 23, 2017). "Robert Lee: ESPN under fire for taking announcer off UVA game". CNN. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  6. Travis, Clay (August 22, 2017). "MSESPN Pulls Asian Announcer Named Robert Lee Off UVa Game To Avoid Offending Idiots". Outkick the Coverage. Archived from the original on June 11, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  7. "ESPN reassigns commentator Robert Lee over 'name coincidence'". BBC. August 23, 2017. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  8. "Robert Lee". Linkedin.com. August 23, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2017.