Years active 1977-present Name John Saunders | Role Journalist Siblings Bernie Saunders | |
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Occupation Sports journalist, TV personality, commentator and play-by-play announcer Nominations Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality - Studio Host TV shows Similar People Mark May, Dick Vitale, Roone Arledge Profiles | ||
Funeral photos john saunders gta born sports journalist dead at 61
John Peterson Saunders (February 2, 1955 – August 10, 2016) was a Canadian-American sports journalist. He worked for ESPN and ABC from 1986 until his death in 2016.
Contents
- Funeral photos john saunders gta born sports journalist dead at 61
- John saunders 1955 2016
- Early life and career
- Career at ESPN and ABC Sports
- NBA
- SportsCenter
- Toronto Raptors
- Personal life
- Death
- References
John saunders 1955 2016
Early life and career
Saunders was an all-star defenseman in the Montreal junior leagues, received a scholarship and played hockey at Western Michigan University from 1974–76 with his brother, Bernie. Saunders attended high school in Montreal, Canada. He transferred to Ryerson University in Toronto and played for the Rams from 1976–78. After the 1977–78 season, Saunders was named to the Ontario University Athletic Association All-Star team. He was the news director for CKNS Radio (Espanola, Ontario, 1978), and sports anchor at CKNY-TV (North Bay, Ontario, 1978–1979) and at ATV News (New Brunswick, 1979–1980). He also served as the main sports anchor for CITY-TV (Toronto, 1980–1982). He then moved to the United States to work as a sports anchor at WMAR-TV (Baltimore, 1982–1986).
Career at ESPN and ABC Sports
Saunders joined ESPN in 1986 and was the host of ESPN's The Sports Reporters, starting with the illness and subsequent death of Dick Schaap in September 2001. He previously co-hosted NFL Primetime from 1987 to 1989. He was also the studio host for the network's NHL broadcasts from 1992–93 until 2004, and was the studio host of ABC's coverage of college football from 1992 to 2015. He has also hosted ABC's coverage of baseball under the Baseball Night in America banner and was involved in ESPN's coverage earlier in his career. He also anchored the 1995 World Series for ABC.
NBA
From 2002 to 2004, and occasionally during the 2007 season, Saunders did play-by-play for ESPN's coverage of the NBA, mostly on Sunday nights. He was the studio host of ESPN's NBA Shootaround from 2004 to 2006.
Saunders also served as a back-up play-by-play man for NBA on ABC. He called most of the Team U.S.A. games on ESPN for the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship.
SportsCenter
In 2008, he began hosting the 7pm ET Sunday SportsCenter during the NFL season with Chris Berman and analyst Tom Jackson.
Toronto Raptors
He was the television play-by-play announcer for the Toronto Raptors from 1995 to 2001, eventually being replaced by Chuck Swirsky.
Personal life
John was an advocate for juvenile diabetes research and was a founding board member of the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research, a charity that has raised almost $90M with 100% of the charity funding cancer research. Saunders lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, with his wife and children.
Death
On August 10, 2016, Saunders' wife discovered him not breathing in their New York home. Emergency responders rushed to the scene, but around 4 a.m., he was pronounced dead. He was 61 years of age. Foul play was ruled out by authorities. Family members stated Saunders had not been feeling well in the days leading up to his death but no specific cause of death was publicly announced. However, according to John U. Bacon, on the August 8, 2017 edition of SportsCenter, he claimed that Saunders died of natural causes. Saunders was included in the "in memoriam" segment at the 2017 ESPY Awards.