Albert, Reilly Elected to NSSA Hall of Fame

Marv Albert and Rick Reilly have been elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame, executive director Dave Goren announced today. Albert, a longtime network play-by-play announcer, and Reilly, who spent the bulk of his career at Sports Illustrated before moving to ESPN, will be honored during the 55th Annual NSSA Awards Weekend, June 7-9 in Salisbury, NC.

NBC's Mike 'Doc' Emrick has been elected 2013 National Sportscaster of the Year and Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King has won his third National Sportswriter of the Year Award in the last four years.

In Ohio, Cleveland Indians' radio play-by-play announcer Tom Hamilton of WTAM won his sixth Sportscaster of the Year Award. Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News and Fox Sports Ohio won the Sportswriter of the Year Award for the 14th time.

Finalists for the award were nominated by NSSA members from mid-October to mid-November. Final balloting took place during the month of December.

Albert began his career as a play-by-play announcer for the New York Knicks, filling in for his mentor Marty Glickman for a game in January 1963. He then served as the full-time "voice of the Knicks" from 1967-2004. Albert has also called play-by-play for the New York Rangers, New York Giants and New Jersey Nets, in addition to his network play-by-jobs for NBC, CBS, Turner Sports, YES and Westwood One. Among his honors, Albert has won three Emmy Awards, six Cable ACE Awards and the Curt Gowdy Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He is a 19-time winner of NSSA's New York Sportscaster of the Year Award. Currently, Albert serves as a play-by-play announcer for NFL games on CBS and for NBA games on Turner Sports.

Reilly's journalism path started at the Boulder (CO) Daily Camera, where he worked for two years, before moving to the Denver Post for two years and the Los Angeles Times for two more. In 1985, he moved to Sports Illustrated, where he spent almost 23 years, including the last 10 as the back-page columnist. Since 2007, Reilly has performed a number of roles for ESPN, including writing a front-page column for ESPN.com, hosting Homecoming with Rick Reilly and contributing human-interest stories for Monday Night Countdown. He is an 11-time NSSA National Sportscaster of the Year and has wonnumerous other awards, including the 2009 Damon Runyon Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. Author of ten books, Reilly also co-wrote the movie Leatherheads, parts of which were filmed in NSSA's hometown of Salisbury, NC. And the charity that Reilly founded, Nothing But Nets, has raised more than $40 million to provide mosquito nets to hang over children in Africa, where malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses kill more than 3,000 children each day.

A veteran of 39 years of broadcasting professional hockey, Emrick wins his first National Sportscaster of the Year Award. He moved to NBC and NBC Sports Network full time in 2011, after spending the previous 18 seasons as the TV voice of the New Jersey Devils. A two-time Emmy Award winner for his play-by-play, Emrick was the first broadcaster inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame, and won the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame. Known as 'Doc', Emrick earned his PhD from Bowling Green State University. He will work his seventh Winter Olympics for NBC in the upcoming Sochi Games in Russia. But hockey is not Emrick's only sport. He has also called water polo for NBC in the Summer Olympics. His play-by-play career began in 1973, calling games of International Hockey League's Port Huron Flags.

King becomes the eighth sportswriter to win the National Award in back-to-back years (also won in 2010 and 2012), joining Red Smith, Jim Murray, Will Grimsley, Frank Deford, Peter Gammons, Reilly and Bob Ryan. The longtime pro football writer for Sports Illustrated used the success of his weekly Monday Morning Quarterback column on SI.com to start TheMMQB.com in 2012, a website devoted to the coverage of the National Football League. King's SI career began in 1989 after stints at Newsday and the Cincinnati Enquirer. He also serves as a reporter for the Football Night in America studio show on NBC.

While there are 46 first-time winners among the state sportscasters and sportswriters of the year, there are seven who have won more than ten state awards, including Indiana University football and basketball play-by-play announcer Don Fischer, who has now won 24 Indiana Sportscaster of the Year Awards.

The three-day NSSA Awards Weekend will feature a welcome reception and dinner, issues forum, seminars, a golf tournament and tennis tournament, as well as the Awards Banquet and Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Information on the Weekend will be posted at nssafame.com as details are finalized.