Al DeRogatis
Encyclopedia
Albert John "Al" DeRogatis (May 5, 1927 – December 26, 1995) was an American football
player and television
and radio
sportscaster
.
and attended the city's Central High School
, earning All-State honors at center
. At Duke University
, after a knee
injury shortened his junior season, he made the 1948 All-America
team as a tackle.
He was drafted the following year by the New York Giants
of the National Football League (NFL)
and played defensive tackle. He was a NFL All-Pro
in both 1950
and 1951
. A recurrence of the knee injury he suffered at Duke ended his playing career after four seasons of professional football. For thirty-three years beginning in 1953, he served as a vice president with Prudential Insurance
.
From 1966 through 1975, the bespectacled DeRogatis served as a color commentator
for professional and college football telecasts on NBC
, primarily with Curt Gowdy
on the network's top broadcast team for American Football League
(later, American Football Conference
) regular-season and playoff matches, Super Bowl
s III
, VII
and IX
and several Rose Bowls. He also was paired with Jim Simpson
to call a few Orange Bowls. Prior to joining NBC, DeRogatis had begun his broadcasting career working with Marty Glickman
on New York football Giants radio broadcasts on WNEW-AM
from 1960 through 1965. DeRogatis was among several veteran announcers who returned to call some NFL telecasts for NBC in September 1988, while many of the network's regular broadcasters were busy calling that year's Summer Olympics
in Seoul
.
DeRogatis can be heard with Gowdy calling a football game in the 1978 film Heaven Can Wait
.
DeRogatis was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame
in 1986. A resident of Spring Lake, New Jersey
, he died of cancer
at Jersey Shore Medical Center on December 26, 1995.
magazine's "Dr. Z" (aka Paul Zimmerman
) has rated DeRogatis as his #1 football analyst of all time.
Upon his death in 1995, DeRogatis was eulogized in the Boston Globe as a prototype for what it means to be a gentleman
, in the sense of displaying a gracious, polite, kind and generous nature. The Globe also published a picture of DeRogatis in the NBC booth together with Curt Gowdy and Don Meredith
in the 2006: The year in photos series, after Curt Gowdy's death in 2006.
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
sportscaster
Sportscaster
In sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
.
Biography
DeRogatis was born in Newark, New JerseyNewark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
and attended the city's Central High School
Central High School (Newark, New Jersey)
Central High School is a four-year public high school located in Newark, New Jersey, United States, as part of the Newark Public Schools.As of the 2005-06 school year, the school had an enrollment of 862 students and 87.0 classroom teachers , for a student–teacher ratio of 9.9.The school was the...
, earning All-State honors at center
Center (American football)
Center is a position in American football and Canadian football . The center is the innermost lineman of the offensive line on a football team's offense...
. At Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, after a knee
Knee
The knee joint joins the thigh with the leg and consists of two articulations: one between the fibula and tibia, and one between the femur and patella. It is the largest joint in the human body and is very complicated. The knee is a mobile trocho-ginglymus , which permits flexion and extension as...
injury shortened his junior season, he made the 1948 All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
team as a tackle.
He was drafted the following year by the New York Giants
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in East Rutherford, New Jersey, representing the New York City metropolitan area. The Giants are currently members of the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
of the National Football League (NFL)
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
and played defensive tackle. He was a NFL All-Pro
All-Pro
All-Pro is a term mostly used in the NFL for the best players of each position during that season. It began as polls of sportswriters in the early 1920s...
in both 1950
1950 NFL season
The 1950 NFL season was the 31st regular season of the National Football League. The merger with the All-America Football Conference expanded the league to 13 teams. Meanwhile, television brought a new era to the game. The Los Angeles Rams became the first NFL team to have all of its games – both...
and 1951
1951 NFL season
The 1951 NFL season was the 32nd regular season of the National Football League. Prior to the season, Baltimore Colts owner Abraham Watner faced financial difficulties, and thus gave his team and its player contracts back to the league for $50,000. However, many Baltimore fans started to protest...
. A recurrence of the knee injury he suffered at Duke ended his playing career after four seasons of professional football. For thirty-three years beginning in 1953, he served as a vice president with Prudential Insurance
Prudential Financial
The Prudential Insurance Company of America , also known as Prudential Financial, Inc., is a Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, investment management, and other financial products and services to both retail and institutional customers throughout the...
.
From 1966 through 1975, the bespectacled DeRogatis served as a color commentator
Color commentator
A color commentator is a sports commentator who assists the play-by-play announcer, often by filling in any time when play is not in progress. The color analyst and main commentator will often exchange comments freely throughout the broadcast, when the play-by-play announcer is not describing the...
for professional and college football telecasts on NBC
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is the sports division of the NBC television network. Formerly "a service of NBC News," it broadcasts a diverse array of programs, including the Olympic Games, the NFL, the NHL, MLS, Notre Dame football, the PGA Tour, the Triple Crown, and the French Open, among others...
, primarily with Curt Gowdy
Curt Gowdy
Curtis Edward "Curt" Gowdy was an American sportscaster, well known as the longtime "voice" of the Boston Red Sox and for his coverage of many nationally-televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s.-Early years:The son of a manager for the Union Pacific railroad,...
on the network's top broadcast team for American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
(later, American Football Conference
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the National Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL....
) regular-season and playoff matches, Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
s III
Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in professional American football, but the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". This game is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in sports history...
, VII
Super Bowl VII
Super Bowl VII was an American football game played on January 14, 1973, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California, to decide the National Football League champion following the 1972 regular season...
and IX
Super Bowl IX
Super Bowl IX was an American football game played on January 12, 1975 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana to decide the National Football League champion following the 1974 regular season. It would be the last pro game at legendary Tulane Stadium...
and several Rose Bowls. He also was paired with Jim Simpson
Jim Simpson (sportscaster)
Jim Simpson is a retired American sportscaster, known for his smooth delivery as a play-by-play man and his versatility in covering many different sports. In 1997, he won the Sports Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2000 he was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters...
to call a few Orange Bowls. Prior to joining NBC, DeRogatis had begun his broadcasting career working with Marty Glickman
Marty Glickman
Martin "Marty" Glickman was a Jewish American track and field athlete and sports announcer, born in The Bronx, New York. His parents, Harry and Molly Glickmann, immigrated to the United States from Jassy, Romania....
on New York football Giants radio broadcasts on WNEW-AM
WBBR
WBBR is a radio station broadcasting at 1130 AM in New York City. It airs Bloomberg Radio, a service of Bloomberg L.P. WBBR's format is general and financial news, offering local, national and international news reports along with financial market updates and interviews with corporate executives,...
from 1960 through 1965. DeRogatis was among several veteran announcers who returned to call some NFL telecasts for NBC in September 1988, while many of the network's regular broadcasters were busy calling that year's Summer Olympics
1988 Summer Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad, were an all international multi-sport events celebrated from September 17 to October 2, 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. They were the second summer Olympic Games to be held in Asia and the first since the 1964 Summer Olympics...
in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
.
DeRogatis can be heard with Gowdy calling a football game in the 1978 film Heaven Can Wait
Heaven Can Wait (1978 film)
Heaven Can Wait is a 1978 American comedy film directed by Warren Beatty and Buck Henry. It is the second film adaptation of Harry Segall's stageplay of the same name, preceded by Here Comes Mr. Jordan and followed by Down to Earth...
.
DeRogatis was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame
College Football Hall of Fame
The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and museum devoted to college football. Located in South Bend, Indiana, it is connected to a convention center and situated in the city's renovated downtown district, two miles south of the University of Notre Dame campus. It is slated to move...
in 1986. A resident of Spring Lake, New Jersey
Spring Lake, New Jersey
Spring Lake is a borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 2,993....
, he died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at Jersey Shore Medical Center on December 26, 1995.
Legacy
Sports IllustratedSports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
magazine's "Dr. Z" (aka Paul Zimmerman
Paul Zimmerman
Paul Lionel Zimmerman is the son of Charles S. Zimmerman and Rose Zimmerman. Zimmerman, also known to readers as "Dr. Z", is an American football sportswriter who wrote for the weekly magazine Sports Illustrated, as well as the magazine's website, SI.com. He is sometimes confused with Paul D...
) has rated DeRogatis as his #1 football analyst of all time.
Upon his death in 1995, DeRogatis was eulogized in the Boston Globe as a prototype for what it means to be a gentleman
Gentleman
The term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...
, in the sense of displaying a gracious, polite, kind and generous nature. The Globe also published a picture of DeRogatis in the NBC booth together with Curt Gowdy and Don Meredith
Don Meredith
Joseph Don "Dandy Don" Meredith was an American football quarterback, sports commentator and actor. He spent all nine seasons of his professional playing career with the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League . He was named to the Pro Bowl in each of his last three years as a player...
in the 2006: The year in photos series, after Curt Gowdy's death in 2006.