Dan Shulman lending his voice to a generation

By Paul Mayne

If it was not for a lengthy line at the student Gazette office in 1986, Dan Shulman may have had an entirely different voice. Instead of the student newspaper, Shulman walked into CHRW Radio and toward what would soon become an award-winning broadcasting career.

Today, Shulman, BSc’89 (Actuarial Sciences), is an ESPN play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball and NCAA Men’s College Basketball. Since 2011, he has been the voice of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. On top of his already busy schedule, Shulman joined the Sportsnet broadcast team where he will call 30 Toronto Blue Jays games in 2016 and 2017.

Prior to ESPN, the Toronto-born Shulman, 49, worked for CTV at the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Norway and called the 1994 FIFA World Basketball Championship in Toronto. He began play-by-play duties for the Blue Jays on TSN (1995-2001) with former Blue Jay Buck Martinez, who is once again his broadcast partner on Sportsnet this year. He also covered the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies as part of the network’s NBA package.

Shulman is the first two-time winner of the Sports Media Canada Broadcaster of the Year award (2000 and 2007). The National Sports Media Association named him National Sportscaster of the Year in 2011.

Western News reporter Paul Mayne met up with Shulman prior to a recent Blue Jays game to chat about his career and his time at Western.

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Go back to the late 1980s. What do you remember most about campus?

My career came out of Western – even though I did not realize that at the time. I had gone there knowing a number of people from high school. A lot of my circle was also going to Western; my roommate was from my high school. It wasn’t a culture shock. I remember really enjoying it. It was just kind of the next stage of life.