Chris Carrino ’92 has been the radio voice of the Nets since 2001, when the NBA’s Brooklyn franchise still called New Jersey home. Now, three-plus decades into a broadcasting career that began at Fordham, he is headed to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
In August, Carrino will receive a Curt Gowdy Media Award—the highest honor for a basketball broadcaster—at the 2026 Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Finding a Mentor and a Calling at Fordham
Like many fellow professional broadcasters (including 2020 Gowdy Award recipient Mike Breen ’83), the Bronx-born Carrino got his start at Fordham’s public media station, WFUV. He says he was particularly inspired by Marty Glickman, the legendary broadcaster who served as a mentor to many students in the station’s sports department and was the first-ever recipient of the Gowdy Award in 1991.
“I knew two things at that moment,” Carrino told The Athletic. “I want to call games. And the other thing was: ‘I don’t know anything about it. I have to listen to this guy.‘”
The lessons Glickman imparted at Fordham have stayed with Carrino for decades.
“Marty’s voice is in my head every broadcast that I do,” he said in a documentary about WFUV. “His mantra was ‘consider the listener.’”
Carrino began his career in Nets radio broadcasting as a studio producer and feature reporter in 1992, the year he graduated from Fordham. He became a studio host before being named full-time play-by-play announcer in 2001, a season when the team, led by point guard Jason Kidd, made its first appearance in the NBA Finals.
‘Talent and Perseverance’
Carrino and his WFAN broadcast partner, Tim Capstraw, have called Nets games together since 2002, when Capstraw joined the booth. In recent years, Carrino has begun to call some road games from a studio near his home in New Jersey due to facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a disease that affects his mobility. He was diagnosed with it in 1993 but didn’t speak publicly about it for nearly two decades.
“On his phone, he has something that says ‘be relentless,’” Capstraw said in a recent video on NBA.com. “And that’s what he is every single day. He’s a great example of talent and perseverance.”
The lack of public awareness about the disease inspired Carrino to start the Chris Carrino Foundation for FSHD in 2011. The foundation aims to fund specifically focused scientific research on the disease—and ultimately, to assist in identifying a treatment and cure for it.“I was determined to continue on the path I set forth,” Carrino told Fordham Now in 2011. “I had dreams of a career in sports broadcasting and dreams of having a family. I was determined not to let FSHD get in the way of those dreams.”
A Broadcasting Family Affair
That family includes his wife, Laura, and their son, Chris, a senior at Fordham who has followed in his father’s footsteps at WFUV and hopes to become a professional play-by-play announcer as well. Three times this season, Chris Jr. has filled in for Capstraw, calling Nets games alongside his dad—who has also joined him on air from Rose Hill Gym.
Carrino’s selection to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame comes as no surprise to his peers, including YES Network’s Ian Eagle, Carrino’s Nets television counterpart.“Chris understands painting the word picture on radio as well as anybody that’s ever done it,” Eagle told The Athletic. “His voice perfectly fits basketball play-by-play.”
Along with Breen and Glickman, past Gowdy Award winners include John Andariese ’60, who called Knicks games for MSG Network and received the honor in 2014, and Malcolm Moran ’75, who was a sports reporter and columnist at The New York Times for nearly 20 years and won the award in 2007.
