Al Trautwig obit

Al Trautwig Dies: NY Sportscaster, TV Voice Of Olympics Gymnastics & NHL Studio Host Was 68

 

He was not on the list.

Al Trautwig, who had a long career as a New York sportscaster and also called national NHL games and Olympics gymnastics, died Monday. He was 68.

The news was shared by Alan Hahn, his former colleague at MSG Network, in a post on X. “We lost a legendary voice in sports,” Hahn wrote. “But we lost a lot more than that. He was not only a friend, but a mentor and a teacher. He was, personally, one of my biggest resources of support when I moved into this career.”

No cause of death was mentioned, but press reports over the past year had indicated that Trautwig had received treatment for cancer.

Known for his lengthy stint at MSG, where he called Yankees baseball, Knicks basketball and a wide range of other live events along with studio programming, Trautwig also was a prominent voice for the NHL, serving as a studio host and sometime-announcer on USA Network broadcasts in the 1980s. He also was the host of NBC’s Ironman triathlon championships that decade.

Among the other sports he covered were tennis’ U.S. Open, the Tour de France, the Arena Football League, but he likely was best known nationally as a play-by-play man for NBC’s coverage of Olympic and other championship gymnastics events.

Although rooted in New York, Trautwig spent enough time on the national stage to be cast in the Disney movie Cool Runnings as a sportscaster narrating the feats of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

“I have been blessed to work with some amazing broadcasters but there was no one better than Al Trautwig,” Yankees TV broadcaster Michael Kay posted on X, in one of many social media tributes. “He was meant to be on the air. Smooth. Unflappable. Al patiently walked a young writer through growing pains on TV. His lessons were invaluable. He was part of the soundtrack of New York sports all those years on MSG. I will miss him. Gone too soon. RIP, my friend.”

Trautwig was a stick boy for the New York Islanders in their early days in the NHL and a ball boy for the New York Nets when they played in the ABA. Both teams used the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York for their home games. He graduated from H. Frank Carey Junior-Senior High School, in Franklin Square, New York. He was a 1978 graduate of Adelphi University, where he majored in business. He was also a 1991 Inductee into the university's Athletics Hall of Fame. His first broadcasting experience was calling New York Apollo soccer matches on WBAU during the summer of 1978 and subsequently WMCA.

In the 1980s, Trautwig hosted USA Network's coverage of the National Hockey League; one off-beat feature that he did was to interview a water fountain. He also occasionally would do the sponsor plugs for WWF shows that would air on the USA Network in the mid-'80s. He occasionally guest hosted the NHL on Versus studio program Hockey Central. He also anchored several MISL games from 1978 to 1992. In summer of 1988, Trautwig hosted SportsNite for ABC Sports, leading former network personality Howard Cosell to quip to The Washington Post's Norman Chad, "I don't even know, as God is my witness, or have ever even heard of an Al Trautwig."

Trautwig was one of the original hosts for Classic Sports Network when it was founded in 1996.

The 2000 New York Sportscaster of the Year, Trautwig has covered the last eight Olympic games, and has won New York Sports Emmys for his coverage of the Yankees, Knicks, and Rangers. From 1991 to 2001, Trautwig was host of the New York Yankees' pre- and post-game shows on MSG Network, and also was in the booth for a few innings per game. In 2006, he hosted the new MSG show called Al Trautwig's MSG Vault, which featured vintage and sometimes discovered lost footage of the Knicks and Rangers from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

At the beginning of the 2006 football season Trautwig became a radio host as well, hosting the radio version of NBC's Football Night in America for Westwood One, which co-produces the show (called NBC NFL Sunday) with the network. However, Trautwig left the show in the middle of the season. Trautwig's contract was not renewed after taking some time off when he appeared in a November 2019 broadcast and viewers noted he looked unwell.

He also hosted NBC's coverage of the Ford Ironman World Championship, Foster Grant Ironman World Championship 70.3 and ING New York City Marathon.

He was a television pit reporter alongside Jim McKay for ABC Sports' coverage of the 1986-1987 Indianapolis 500.

He co-anchored coverage of the Tour de France (from 2004 to 2007 on Versus (formerly OLN) and in the 1980s for ABC), the Olympics, and NBC's coverage of the Arena Football League. Despite his years of experience as a broadcaster, he was sometimes criticized by cycling fans, for his occasionally uninformed commentary, and his tendency to compare the Tour to various mainstream sports he covered.

From 2005 to 2008, he also co-anchored USA Network's coverage of the US Open tennis tournament.

In 2000, Trautwig replaced John Tesh as play-by-play announcer of U.S. national and international gymnastics competitions for NBC, including the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympic games. Trautwig's color commentators included former Olympic gold medalist Tim Daggett, former Canadian champion gymnast Elfi Schlegel, three-time Olympian John Roethlisberger and 2008 Olympic champion Nastia Liukin.

Trautwig stated that, at the urging of NBC producers, his gymnastics commentary focused on the personal stories of the gymnasts. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he described a gymnast's pre-Olympics injury as "like having a tear in your wedding dress right before you walk down the aisle."

His most notable controversy involved repeatedly referring to the fact that Simone Biles's adoptive parents are her biological grandparents during the 2016 Rio Olympics, refusing to refer to them as her parents. He publicly doubled down on these sentiments on Twitter despite widespread backlash, tweeting, "they may be mom and dad, but they are not her parents." His commentary has resulted in some in the gymnastics community criticizing Trautwig long before the Biles controversy at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Shortly after the conclusion of the 2016 Rio Olympics, Trautwig was permanently removed from gymnastics commentary duty.