Radio and Television
After his retirement from playing in 1989, James went on to become a radio analyst for SMU college football games and then the sports anchor for KDFW-TV. During this time, he also appeared on ESPN as a studio analyst on the College GameDay and College Football Scoreboard programs. Craig worked the Game Day Desk with Lee Corso and would pick up the nickname Mustang Breath from Lee in the 'Not So Fast' segment on their pick 'em segment. In 1996, he joined CBS where he served as a studio analyst on their College Football Today as well as The NFL Today programs before becoming a game analyst on NFL on CBS with Kevin Harlan. During his CBS stint, he served as a reporter during the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship as well as the 1998 Winter Olympics. In 2003, James moved to ABC. He served as a studio analyst on their college football coverage through the 2008 season. He also appears as an analyst on ESPN's Thursday night package as well as other college football programs such as College Football Live. He then teamed with Mike Patrick and sideline reporter Heather Cox as game analyst for the 2009 season, working ESPN on ABC Saturday afternoon broadcasts, while still working the Thursday night package. On December 19, 2011, James announced that he was leaving ESPN to run for the United States Senate.
James also operates his own broadcasting school, eponymously called the Craig James School of Broadcasting.
James said in 1998 that the Wisconsin Badgers were "the worst team to ever play in the Rose Bowl." Wisconsin went on to defeat #6 UCLA 38–31 in the 1999 Rose Bowl. Afterward, Badger coach Barry Alvarez fired back, "Well, I know we're at least the second worst."
James is a voter in the AP college football poll, and has received some attention and criticism for his reported tendency to give low votes to teams from outside the Automatic Qualifying conferences, such as Boise State and TCU.
Read more about this topic: Craig James (American Football)
Famous quotes containing the words radio and/or television:
“A liberal is a socialist with a wife and two children.”
—Anonymous. BBC Radio 4 (April 8, 1990)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)