For four long years, Thom Brennaman has pondered the last words he spoke on Reds TV before being removed from a telecast mid-game for uttering a homophobic slur. He told Bally Sports Ohio viewers:
âI donât know if Iâll be putting on this headset again.â
Finally he will on Saturday. Brennaman resumes his TV network career doing play-by-play for the CW networkâs prime-time Oregon State-Idaho State football game at 6:30 p.m., Saturday (Channel 12.2, CW).
âIâm just so excited and so grateful that thereâs somebody out there whoâs willing to give me another chance,â Brennaman tells me in a far-ranging interview. âI canât believe when I get up in the morning that Iâm now starting to get ready for a football game. I just canât believe it.â
Brennaman, who turns 61 Sept. 12, admits he was too negative and critical on Reds TV in his final year. He considered leaving broadcasting and getting a 9-to-5 job. He found it âvery emotionalâ pulling out his headphones and football playersâ notation âboardsâ as he began his game preparation. And he says heâll return to the airwaves with âa more positiveâ attitude.
âI think I became a little too negative on the team there towards the end (on Reds TV). Iâll be a more positive broadcaster,â he says. âI think my perspective is different. Maybe I lost along the way how fortunate I was to be in the positions I was in. And so I think I will certainly cherish that much, much more than perhaps I did back in 2020.â
Brennaman left the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007 to join the Reds broadcasting team and work with his father, Marty, the Hall of Fame Reds radio play-by-play announcer. He was hired by WLWT-TV directly from Ohio University in 1986 as a sports producer with sports executive producer Rob Reichley, now the head of Raycom Sports in North Carolina.
An OU connection led to his comeback. Brennaman read an OU alumni magazine article about Perry Sook, the founder, chairman and CEO of Nexstar Media Group, the nationâs biggest TV station ownership group. So he âsent a random email to basically the corporate suggestion boxâ offering his services.
âI figured that he was never going to get it. But the next day I got an email back from him,â Brennaman says.
Then he got a phone call from Sean Compton, who oversees Nexstarâs networks (CW, Antenna TV, NewsNation and Chicagoâs WGN TV/radio). Compton, the son of the late Dale âThe Truckinâ Bozoâ Sommers WLW-AM overnight host, started in the business at WLW-AM and knew all about Brennaman. Compton told him the CW was expanding its college football schedule this fall with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and two PAC 12 teams, Oregon State and Washington State. The ACC games are produced for the CW by Raycom Sports, where Reichley is senior vice president and executive producer.
âHiring Thom was purely our decision,â Compton tells me, calling Brennaman a âfirst classâ broadcaster.
Brennaman says: âThe next thing you know this opportunity came along and I just canât believe it. It was an act of God. If you look at all the different people involved to make this happen, starting with me looking at a magazine, to sending him an email, to Sean Compton being involved, and to Rob Reichley, itâs like, thank God!â
Here are more comments by Brennaman on:
BEING SO NEGATIVE ON REDS TV: âI think that was a fair criticism of my work near the end with the Reds. I just used to get so frustrated because I was a Reds fan, and I really wanted them to do well. I felt like there were some years when they had the talent to do well, and they just didnât do it. Iâd get frustrated just like a normal fan. The difference between me and them was that I was paid to talk about it on television. And so it came out, I think, at times (as) being negative. Whereas when I went to do an NFL game, or a college basketball or football game, I didnât have a rooting interest in the game. I just did the game."
A POSITIVE BROADCASTER: âIâll be a more positive broadcaster, finding the good rather than picking at the bad. I think that Iâll be different in that regard. I think what Iâve been through â and look, I didnât lose a family member, I didnât have my world fall apart and have to sell my house, I donât have cancer â there are people who have real problems out there, compared to what Iâve gone through the last four years. And I wouldnât for a second begin to compare that to people who are going through things like that. But it was tough."
NEVER PERFECT: âI was never a perfect broadcaster. I was never a perfect man in any ways. But I really felt like that for 30-plus years, I was never an employee where any of the people I worked for had to wake up and open the morning paper and read about their announcer said this or did that. And one moment in time changed all of that.â
ROB REICHLEY: âHe got me on the air. The first time I ever did anything â ever! â on the air at Channel 5. When I was hired there after I left OU, I wasnât hired to be on the air. I was hired as a weekend sports producer for J.D. Hayworth. Bill Hemmer was our intern. Jerry Springer was the main (news) anchor, Steve Physioc was the sports anchor and Andy Furman was the sports director.
âWe did a 30-minute local sports show after the 11 oâclock news on Sunday night, and I helped produce it. During Bengals camp of the following year, in 1987, General Manager Tony Kiernan wanted me to start doing some stuff on the air, some reporting along with producing. So Rob and I drove up to Wilmington, Ohio, for Bengals training camp and I did a story about a long-shot defensive lineman. Rob shot the whole thing, helped me write the whole thing, and basically told me what to say in the standup. That was the first time I got on the air.
âWeâve stayed in contact all these years. We speak like once a month. Every time Iâd go into Charlotte for NFL games weâd always find time to get together for a cup of coffee or lunch. I remember I had called Rob when the (CW-Raycom Sports) deal was announced a year ago, just to say, âHey do you have anything available there?â And he said he didnât know because they had less than a month to put this football games together last season.â
CHATTERBOX SPORTS: âI gave serious consideration to looking at a 9-to-5 job. I really pondered a lot of different things. But this was in my blood. This is what I felt like I could still do. I kept faith ⊠Trace Fowler at Chatterbox Sports in Hamilton was really to do anything, to do high school football.
âFor two years I did a podcast show for them, a sports talk show Monday through Friday. Then I decided that doing five days a week was keeping me from getting another job. So I started doing a sports podcast with my son, Luke, who is a sophomore at Indiana University. That drops every Monday and Friday. Brian Belichick (Thomâs former Fox Sports analyst) is a regular as our NFL expertâŠ
âThe content has really continued to spread at Chatterbox. Itâs phenomenal for a young startup company. They do all the Miami of Ohio womenâs softball games, and Miami baseball games â just the home games â and they started high school football games again last week. Theyâve got talk shows. Since they gave me that chance, there was no way now that I was going to turn around and say, âNow that I have a job, see ya later!â I want to stay there and help them build the company.â
LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY: After resigning from the Reds broadcast team four years ago, Brennaman reached out to various LGBTQ+ organizations locally and nationally. Some became âvery close friends,â he says.
âI still stay in contact with all of them. Iâm just so indebted to all of them forever, for their grace and their forgiveness,â Brennaman says.
VERY EMOTIONAL: âItâs been very emotional getting ready for this first game. The last football game I did was in 2019. I had my wife and son last week come with me down to the basement where my football things were. Iâve actually thought about when I'd put on that headset again, because I still have that same headset at my house that I travel with because of a hearing deficiency. Itâs a specially made headset. I hope the damn thing still works with the technology today! Weâll find out.â
GODâS PLAN: âI kept faith. I told my wife the night it happened, âGodâs got a plan here. We might not like it. I might not like it. I may not like the timing of it. But sooner or later, something is going to happen.â And itâs been a long four years, donât get me wrong, I mean a lot of dark days.
"Then you throw in the fact of the embarrassment youâve done to other people in your life. My kids were playing in games and people would be yelling stuff from the stands at them, especially our son. My daughter would hear it in college. And my wife. And (the impact on) my dad, and the Brennaman name âŠ
âAnd here we now have a chance to hopefully just move forward.â
