Collinsworth Wins Two More Emmys

Those of us who heard Cris Collinsworth in his early days of WLW-AM's "SportsTalk" know he's come a long way in 18 years. And none of us -- even Collinsworth himself -- ever envisioned that he'd win national Sports Emmys for his commentary. But on Monday night, Collinsworth broke his own record by winning a seventh Sports Emmy for outstanding sports studio analyst (for HBO and NBC), and then he won an eighth for best game analyst.

"To win both is ridiculous. I never got a Super Bowl ring, but I had a pretty good night in broadcasting. That will do for me," he says.

The best studio analyst honor comes from both NBC's "Football Night in America" pregame show and HBO's weekly "Inside the NFL." His competition was TNT's Charles Barkley, ESPN's Jay Bilas and Kirk Herbstreit, and Fox's Jeff Hammond.

The game commentary award was for his NFL Network games last fall. His competition was Fox's Tim McCarver and Darrell Waltrip, NBC's Johnny Miller and ESPN's Jerry Bailey.

The full list of winners are here http://www.emmyonline.org/emmy/sports.html

When I talked to Collinsworth today, he didn't forget his humble beginnings in Cincinnati radio. He thanked Bob Trumpy, Bill Cunningham, Andy Furman and others at WLW for their guidance and patience.

"The hardest thing I ever did was being put in a room (studio) by myself, and doing a show for three hours," he says. "Did they beat me up? Yes. Did I almost get fired? About 10 times. I didn’t go to journalism school. Lots of the mistakes I made, I made on WLW. But you survive over time, and eventually get pretty good."

OK, so maybe I'm a homer, but I think Collinsworth deserves the Emmys. I think he's one of the best? Do you? I also like Joe Morgan on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, but he wasn't a nominee. Which announcers do you like on what sports?