Christopher Eugene Schenkel was an American sportscaster.
28 Facts About Chris Schenkel
2.
Chris Schenkel began his broadcasting career at radio station WBAA while studying for a premedical degree at Purdue University where he was a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.
3.
Chris Schenkel served in the US Army during World War II and the Korean War.
4.
Chris Schenkel worked in radio for a time at WLBC in Muncie, Indiana.
5.
In 1952, Chris Schenkel was hired by the DuMont Television Network, for which he broadcast New York Giants football and hosted DuMont's Boxing From Eastern Parkway and Boxing From St Nicholas Arena, replacing Dennis James as the network's primary boxing announcer.
6.
Chris Schenkel was at the microphone for DuMont's last broadcast and its only color telecast, a high school football championship game held on Thanksgiving in 1957.
7.
Chris Schenkel was the voiceover talent for the first NFL Films production ever made, the 1962 NFL Championship Game between the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants.
8.
Chris Schenkel became widely known for covering professional bowling, mainly for the Professional Bowlers Association.
9.
Chris Schenkel covered bowling from the early 1960s until 1997, as it became one of ABC's signature sports for Saturday afternoons.
10.
Chris Schenkel told McCordic it was a great moment for him, since he was away all the other times.
11.
Chris Schenkel would be in the ABC booth for five more televised 300 games.
12.
Chris Schenkel had attended then named Georgia Teacher's College while in the service near Statesboro during WW II.
13.
The Chris Schenkel Tournament ended after the 1989 event when it was discovered that the golf club hosting the tournament was all-white, but was revived in 1999 as the E-Z-Go Chris Schenkel Invitational.
14.
Chris Schenkel did play-by-play for the legendary 1969 Texas vs Arkansas football game, known as a "Game of the Century," culminating the first 100 years of College Football in 1969.
15.
Years later, Chris Schenkel said "it was the most exciting, most important college football game I ever televised".
16.
Chris Schenkel went on to broadcast many more huge games, including the celebrated Nebraska-Oklahoma match on Thanksgiving Day 1971, as well as the Sugar Bowl national championship showdown between Notre Dame and Alabama on New Year's Eve 1973.
17.
Chris Schenkel was replaced by Keith Jackson as ABC's lead play-by-play man for college football telecasts in 1974, but continued to call college football games for several more years.
18.
Chris Schenkel was the spokesman for Owens-Illinois' "Good Taste of Beer" advertising campaign which began in 1975 and continued through the remainder of the decade.
19.
In 1976, Chris Schenkel was inducted into the PBA Hall of Fame in the "Meritorious Service" category and in 1988 was inducted into the American Bowling Congress Hall of Fame, in the "Meritorious Service" category.
20.
Chris Schenkel was inducted in 1981 in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.
21.
Chris Schenkel was named National Sportscaster of the Year four times, and in 1992 received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award.
22.
Chris Schenkel was married to former dancer and model, Fran Paige.
23.
In 1971, Chris Schenkel, a longtime friend of Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony Hulman, was a passenger in the pace car for that year's Indianapolis 500 race.
24.
Chris Schenkel died of emphysema in 2005 at the age of 82.
25.
Chris Schenkel is interred at Saint Johns United Church of Christ Cemetery in Bippus, Indiana.
26.
Chris Schenkel appeared as the bowling announcers in the final match in the 1979 movie Dreamer.
27.
Chris Schenkel played the role of play-by-play announcer in the final match between characters Ernie McCracken and Roy Munson.
28.
Chris Schenkel played himself as an announcer of a bowling tournament early in the movie.