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Tim BontempsESPN
CLEVELAND — ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel, Hall of Famer and longtime New York Knicks broadcaster Walt “Clyde” Frazier and longtime NBC executive Dick Ebersol were named the Naismith Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Media Award winners Friday afternoon here during All-Star Weekend.
“I am really appreciative of the honor because it has been such a big part of my life to help chronicle the growth of women’s basketball,” Voepel told ESPN. “I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to witness that, and work with others who also care about it so much.”
Voepel, who was given the print version of the award, has worked for ESPN since 1996 and is the foremost authority on women’s basketball in both the collegiate and professional ranks. A 1987 graduate of the University of Missouri, she has attended more than 20 straight Women’s Final Fours.
Frazier, meanwhile, was named the electronic winner after he followed up his Hall of Fame playing career with the Knicks by becoming the face of their broadcasts for more than three decades, including for most of the past two decades alongside fellow Gowdy Award winner Mike Breen.
His evocative language — and even more provocative clothing — has kept him a household name in New York more than five decades after he first arrived in the Big Apple.
“I’m so thrilled for Clyde,” Breen told ESPN. “We all know what a Hall of Fame player he was, but he has also been one of the most unique and talented NBA broadcasters of all time. Sitting next to him calling Knick games together all these years has been one of the joys of my life.
“In New York, he’s as beloved as a broadcaster as he was as a player. He’s just given all of us so much for so many years. What a great day.”
Ebersol, the transformative media winner, created “NBA on NBC,” which chronicled all of Michael Jordan’s six championships in the 1990s with the Chicago Bulls, as well as the three championships Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant won together with the Los Angeles Lakers.
His work on the Olympics with NBC also included documenting the “Dream Team” in Barcelona, Spain, during the 1992 games.