This has been another dream year in a fantasy-like career for ESPN sportscaster Chris Fowler. He has called national and international championships in his two favorite sports, college football and tennis, and now is on an assignment for the ages—being behind the mic at the U.S. Open starting today to cover Serena Williams’ quest for tennis’ first singles Grand Slam in 27 years.
“In terms of documenting an achievement, it would be the most amazing thing I’ve seen,” says Fowler, who has spent nearly three decades covering a wide world of sports from high school games to World Cup matches. “Any Grand Slam event is a piece of tennis history. When you add on to it what Serena could achieve and put it in New York in the biggest tennis stadium in the world, it’s hard to imagine anything more. There will be a wild scene—it will be electric.”
Fowler has a chance to help lay down the soundtrack for potential sports history because ESPN is beginning an 11-year deal for start-to-finish coverage of the Open, ending CBS’ 47- year run at the Flushing, N.Y., fortnight. Fowler, who covered early-round Open matches for ESPN the past six years, will be in the booth three additional days (for a total of 10) and call three more matches (18 total) than last year.
But he will break away this weekend for his other big gig, as play-by-play guy on ESPN’s Saturday primetime, college football games on ABC, heading to Arlington, Texas, to cover Alabama vs. Wisconsin.
Fowler then will fly back East to call the Ohio State-Virginia Tech game on ESPN Labor Day evening before returning to New York for the last six days of the Open, including the women’s championship Saturday afternoon, Sept. 12, and the men’s final Sunday afternoon, Sept. 13.
Fowler will skip the Sept. 12 Oregon- Michigan State grid game to be at the Open. “It’s very important for me to call the finals,” he says. “For years I’ve eyeballed that booth, so finally it is kind of a dream to be able to do it.”
Fowler has called two of Williams’ three major tournament wins this year, the Australian Open and Wimbledon. A title in New York, along with her French Open trophy, would make Williams the first singles player to win all four majors in a calendar year—the Grand Slam—since Steffi Graf in 1988.
Fowler built his success as a host but has gradually gravitated back to his first love, play-by-play, which he fell hard for growing up in Rockford, Ill., listening to fabled Chicago sportscasters Lloyd Pettit and Jack Brick-house.
“Calling games always has been my passion, never reading scores or highlights,” he says.
About 95% of his tennis workload now is play-by-play, and although he would like to mix in some hosting at the Open, he’s hesitant to because of the unpredictable length of matches.
Fowler knows all about that. He and analyst Patrick McEnroe called the longest Grand Slam final in history, 5 hours and 53 minutes, between winner Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at the 2012 Australian Open.
“I’m a little bit claustrophobic,” Fowler says, “so sometimes a tennis booth is not a comfortable place to be unless the action out the window is really fun and exciting. Then you forget about what a small space you’re in.”
Longtime ESPN executive John A. Walsh and other key talent evaluators considered Fowler a keeper early in his career and gave him his big break in 1990, tapping him to host weekly college football pregame show College GameDay.
“It soon became obvious to everyone that he was made for hosting, he was made for college sports, that he understood it all,” says Walsh, who retired this year as ESPN executive editor and senior VP. “Chris is very smart, very contemporary. He’s a student of everything that he does and is in a perpetual state of learning.”
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