The AT&T Cotton Bowl has enjoyed the company of many outstanding relationships over the past 71 years, but none quite like the partnership it has celebrated with FOX Sports. This year, the Classic and FOX observes its 10th anniversary.
The relationship began on New Year’s Day, 1999, when the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic became the network’s first collegiate property. In 2007, FOX became the television home of the Bowl Championship Series.
FOX launched its venture into sports programming in 1993 with a
multi-year agreement with the National Football League. After its regular-season NFL debut in September, 1994, the network quickly expanded its sports inventory to include Major League Baseball and NASCAR.
Some of the greatest names in sports television have taken part in the telecast of the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic during the past 10 years…broadcasters like Joe Buck, Thom Brennaman, and now Pat Summerall.
The AT&T Cotton Bowl thanks the FOX Network for 10 great years of Classic telecasts. Here’s to many more celebrations in the years to come!
PAT SUMMERALL Play-by-Play Announcer
Pat Summerall, one of the most legendary figures in all of sports, will be
back in the broadcast booth for the second consecutive year to call the action of the 72nd AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic on FOX. Summerall will team up with former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Brian Baldinger to bring the excitement, color and pageantry of the New Year’s Day Classic to millions of fans around the world.
Summerall is no newcomer to the AT&T Cotton Bowl’s broadcast booth. He served as Chris Schenkel’s color analyst during the 1964 telecast on CBS. He returned to the booth three years later for the 1967 Classic and again in 1968 to work alongside another famous broadcaster, Lindsey Nelson.
Last New Year’s Day, Summerall stepped back into the broadcast booth, but this time in the role that made him a broadcasting legend – as the lead play-by-play man.
Summerall’s remarkable resume includes 15 Super Bowls on network television – the first five as a game analyst and the rest as play-by-play – and more than 50 years of NFL experience as a player and as a broadcaster.
The premier football play-by-play man of his era, fans may know Summerall best for his partnership with John Madden. The Summerall-Mad-den duo began during the 1981 NFL season and concluded following the 2002 Super Bowl on FOX (XXXVI).
Summerall launched his Hall of Fame broadcasting career in 1961 at CBS. In addition to football, he was the network's signature voice for golf coverage, including the Mas-ters® beginning in 1968. The 1994 Masters®was Summerall's final event for CBS before making the move to FOX.
BRIAN BALDINGER Analyst
Brian Baldinger, a former standout offensive guard with the Dallas Cowboys, assumes the role of color analyst along-
side Pat Summerall for the second straight year at the 2008 AT&T Cotton Bowl on FOX.
Baldinger is no stranger to Dallas’ New Year’s Day Classic. This is his seventh year as a member of the Classic’s broadcast team. Baldinger roamed the field as the game’s sideline reporter for four years, from 2001 to 2004, then moved up to the booth as color analyst for the 2005 Classic. After a year’s absence, he returned to the AT&T Cotton Bowl as Pat Summerall’s analyst in 2007.
A regular member of the NFL broadcast team on FOX, Baldinger worked this season as the analyst for Dick Stockton.
Baldinger moved from the playing field to sports broadcasting in 1997. His first assignment at FOX was in the NFL Europe League. The next season he joined the NFL on FOX working with Ray Bentley and Curt Menefee. Baldinger joined Menefee exclusively in 1999, where he remained until 2001 when he moved from the studio back to the broadcast booth to work with the network’s lead play-by-play man, Joe Buck.
When he’s away from the broadcast booth, Baldinger teaches seminars for Nadia Communications and recently co-authored his first book, “The Map to Clear Messages.”
KRISTA VODA
Sideline Reporter Krista Voda is back for another year of duty as sideline reporter for FOX in its coverage of
the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic. She will team with Jeanne Zelasko to cover all the angles from the playing field.
Well-known for her contributions in motor sports, Voda began her relationship with FOX’s NASCAR family in 2002 as a reporter and host for “Totally NASCAR” on FSN. This spring she joins Steve Byrnes, Dick Berggren and Matt Yocum for her second season in the pits to bring viewers all the latest action and news for FOX’s NASCAR Nextel Cup coverage.
Voda’s impressive motorsports resume includes Speed's coverage of the popular Amp'd Mobile AMA Supercross Series, pit reporting for the American Le Mans Series and the Sports Car Club of America and feature reporting for the Indy Racing League.
In addition to her work in motorsports, Voda has been a sideline reporter for FSN’s coverage of ACC basketball and has made appearances on “The Best Damn Sports Show Period.”
JEANNE ZELASKO Sideline Reporter FOX will call on veteran studio host and reporter Jeanne Zelasko to co-an-chor reports from
the sideline with Krista Voda for the 2008 Classic. This will be Zelasko’s third assignment at the AT&T Cotton Bowl in the past four years.
Zelasko brings a wealth of experience to the FOX broadcast team. Fans may know her best as the studio host of the Emmy Award-winning “FOX Saturday Baseball Game of the Week” pre-game show.
The versatile journalist has performed many functions since joining the FOX Sports family in 1996, including anchor of Fox Sports Net’s “National Sports Report” and sideline reporter for “FOX NFL Sunday.” From 2001-2005, she served as a pit reporter for FOX Sports’ coverage of NASCAR.
Prior to joining the National Sports Report, Zelasko co-hosted the San Diego Padre’s pre-game show for Prime Sports West, a regional sports network in Southern California (now Fox Sports Net West). While working as an assignment reporter for the network, she covered a variety of sports including the NFL, NHL, college basketball and auto racing.
138
References:
Archives