The Justice

Media Credit: Judelson, Davida Manny, left, and David Halberstam pose Jan. 31 after the two called the Brandeis men's basketball game.

Back in the mid 1970s, former St. John's University basketball and Miami Heat radio broadcaster David Halberstam broadcasted a Brandeis basketball game in Waltham as the play-by-play man for schools in the City University of New York system. Over 30 years later he returned to Waltham, calling the men's basketball game Sunday against Carnegie Mellon University for WBRS, the Brandeis radio station. But this time he was sitting beside his son, Manny Halberstam '10, a member of the WBRS sports staff. The idea first came to the elder Halberstam after the two attended a Brandeis-New York University basketball game in New York City.

"Marv Albert is sort of an icon, particularly in New York," David Halberstam said about his inspiration for the idea. "His son went to [New York University], Kenny Albert, so Kenny was doing the games for the NYU radio station, and he brought Marv down to do one half of the game and he did the other half. … I thought it would be an interesting idea to have Manny do that."

That was also the moment when the younger Halberstam, then a first-year, decided to join the WBRS team. Like Marv Albert and his son, the two took turns doing the play-by-play. Manny did the first half while his father provided color commentary, and then the two switched for the second half.

"It was sort of a dream come true in many ways," David Halberstam said. "Even though my play-by-play career is behind me, I know that Manny really has no plans now of pursuing it, but nonetheless it was quite something to be able to sit near my son, and he did a very good job."

After the broadcast David Halberstam met with a group of sports broadcasters from WBRS to talk to them about his experiences and to give them advice for pursuing a career in the industry.

David Halberstam began his career calling games for the City University of New York schools before moving on to St. John's University, which at the time had one of the best basketball teams in the state of New York. However, they did not have a radio announcer because of financial issues. So in exchange for getting to call the games, Halberstam had to sell ads for the station, which soon became a major part of his career.

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