The collection includes papers, photographs, and artifacts, which are organized by format, size, title, and chronologically. Except for some of his photographs, Baby Book, obituaries, and a student paper, all of the other materials in the collection were generated by his career. Among these are correspondence, photographs, awards, essays, play-by-play statistics and notes, broadcast related notes and statistics. Artifacts in the collection include: pins and identity cards, a plaque, a baseball, a towel, and a blazer. Particularly unusual to other manuscript collections are his oversized Basketball Broadcast Boards, 1992-1994, and undated, and Football Broadcast Boards, 1980-1996, and undated. These contain a wealth of information about the player’s personal and professional lives and dreams, and other broadcast related notes and essays, demonstrating his vast accumulation and knowledge of the athletes and sports. A 2016 addition includes a CD of a video essay on baseball written by Dick to celebrate his 60 years as a sportscaster. The video includes black and white and color footage of various players and games over decades. He wrote it. The video was created by Fox Sports San Diego. The video was created by Fox Sports San Diego (MP4 format).
Biography:
Born on January 9, 1935 in Mount Clemens, Michigan, Dick Enberg earned a B.S. in physical education from Central Michigan University (CMU) in 1957, and a master’s and doctoral degrees in health sciences from Indiana University.
His career began as a professional broadcaster in 1965 as the radio and TV play-by-play voice of Los Angeles Rams football, California Angels baseball and UCLA basketball. Since joining NBC in 1975, Enberg covered virtually every major Sports event including three Summer Olympics, Wimbledon and French Open tennis, U.S. Open and Ryder Cup golf and 20 years of NFL football. In 1994, he became the first announcer in history to call play-by-play on consecutive exclusive Super Bowl telecasts. Enberg called play-by-play action for eight Super Bowl telecasts. He also called play-by-play for the NBA All-Star Game, the World Series, and the NCAA Basketball Championships. Enberg hosted NBC’s coverage of Breeders’ Cup Day, the Word Championships of Track and Field, and the World Figure Skating Championships.
Enberg earned eight Emmy Awards, four for Outstanding Play-by-play Sports Personality, one for production, and three for writing. He was inducted into CMU’s Athletic Hall of Fame, the first no-letter winner so honored. On February 24, 1998 Enberg received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1997 he was named Play-by-play Sportscaster of the year.
Dick died suddenly and unexpectedly on December 21, 2017. He was survived by his wife, Barbara, and daughter, Nicole Enberg Vaz. (This information is from the collection.)
