From the Tornoto Marlboros hockey team to the Olympic Games, 45-year sports broadcasting veteran and Ketchum resident Tim Ryan isn't exaggerating when he says he's covered "every sport under the sun."
In February, he'll broadcast alpine skiing for NBC in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, his fifth straight Winter Games and one of the most highly anticipated for the U.S. Ski Team in recent memory.
"Two words: Bode Miller," said Ryan. "I think we have every reason to believe he will do more of the same—possibly fall in one of the events and win medals in the rest."
A Canadian native who grew up playing hockey in a football family—his dad, Joe, was the general manager of three Canadian Football League teams—Ryan didn't start skiing until after a fateful visit to Sun Valley in 1972. But that's not what landed him a job as a broadcaster for the World Cup and later the alpine skiing events in the Olympics.
Ryan has covered football and tennis, boxing and equestrian, and just about everything in between. His versatility as a sports announcer is why two of the three major television networks—NBC and CBS—have fought over him for 18 years.
Ryan's career in sports television began in 1960, shortly after graduating from the University of Notre Dame, as a broadcaster for the Ontario Hockey League's Toronto Marlboros. He landed back in the United States in 1967 when the NHL expanded from six teams to 12, and became president of public relations and broadcasting for the California Golden Seals hockey team. In 1970 he switched coasts to broadcast New York Rangers hockey games. Two years later—about the same time he visited Sun Valley for the first time—he was hired by NBC to cover the NHL "Game of the Week," and later branched out to the NFL. In 1977, CBS swept in and hired Ryan away from NBC, thus sparking a 22 year run with the network, where he covered football, basketball, tennis, boxing—including an epic Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazer fight—and eventually skiing.
In a 1994 interview with the Express, Ryan said he was asked to cover World Cup ski racing because he was "the only one with (a) winter sports background."
In 1992, he covered his first Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and a long affair with the global gem of sporting events began. For the next three Olympic Winter Games, Ryan's partner on camera was Christin Cooper, the 1984 Olympic giant slalom silver medalist who grew up skiing and racing in Sun Valley with the Sun Valley Ski and Snowboard Education Foundation. They became lifelong friends, and Ryan turned into a supporter of the SVSEF.
"He's been very, very supportive of the program—he's helped us as a guest speaker and he's made various donations to the foundation," said SVSEF Fundraising Chief Kate Berman. "He and Christin Cooper have worked closely together to help us."
After 22 years at CBS, in 1999 Ryan was rehired by NBC, shortly after the network landed a new, lengthy contract to broadcast the Olympics. A few years later, ESPN hired him to cover professional tennis.
"I've been in this game a long time," he said from his home in Ketchum earlier this week, days before leaving to cover a cutting and reining horse competition in Oklahoma City. In the next four months he will cover World Cup skiing in Beaver Creek and Aspen, the Australian Open in Melbourne, and the Winter Olympics in Torino—where he expects great things from Miller.
From Ingemar Stenmark to Hermann Maier, Ryan's seen some of the world's greatest alpine ski racers. But Miller may be a notch above them all.
"He clearly is the best male skier in the world right now, he's a genuine four-event racer," he said. "Bode has this extraordinary skill and will to win. The other racers themselves say this is the best racer out there. He's just really special, and it's a thrill to be able to cover someone that special."
Although ski racing isn't religion in the United States like it is in Europe, Ryan said Miller's talent on the course, and charisma off, attracts even non-skiers to the sport.
"He draws viewers to the set," Ryan said about Miller. "There are articles done about him all the time, and it's not that he's just waiting around to be interviewed, he's one of the most interesting racers (on the World Cup tour). He's a very highly intelligent, thoughtful person. Most of the time he's saying something, he's given it a great deal of thought."
As for the U.S. Womens' Ski Team, Ryan believes a couple members also have a shot at reaching the podium.
"Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Kildow are the best American women racers since Tamara McKinney and Christin Cooper," Ryan said, referring to the 1980s duo. "They could be medalists. The early part of the season will tell a lot about the girls."
But the Olympics will also showcase the female version of Bode Miller in Janica Kostelic.
"She is the best woman in the sport," Ryan said of the Croatian sensation. "She's the best of all time—she does such phenomenal things. When you talk to her you can see, like Bode, she has it. She is head and shoulders above the rest."
After covering equestrian events in the blazing heat of the sparsely attended 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens, Ryan is looking forward to getting back to Europe and the Alps. Once he retires, Ryan and his second wife, Patricia—his first wife, Lee, died of Alzheimer's disease—plan to buy a second home in Geneva, Switzerland.
"We love Europe, and we have friends in many European cities," Ryan said.
But with four children living in the U.S., including two out West (Boise and Las Vegas), Ryan said he will always keep his home in Ketchum.
"This is a special place, we learned to ski here as a family," Ryan said, adding that he decided to move here full time in 1991 when his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. "It's a small town full of wonderful, caring people."
NBC sports broadcaster Tim Ryan in his Ketchum home. Ryan will cover the Torino Winter Olympics in Italy this February.
