An Ode to Mike Greenberg of ESPN

As a sports fan my whole life (30 years), I have always enjoyed listening to sports talk radio.

Growing up, I always listened to WFAN and enjoyed hearing the likes of Mike Francesa, Steve Somers, Joe Benigno and others give their opinions on sports both at the local and national levels. I still listen to WFAN and can now appreciate the mark they made on the sports talk radio industry.

With that said, my favorite sports talk personality is not on WFAN. Rather, he is on ESPN Radio and is someone that I have been listening to you on a consistent basis for the last three or four years.

This person is Mike Greenberg. Greenberg, 45, has been in the sports media industry both on television, on radio and even in print for a long time and to me at least, is one of the best in the business.

For starters, "Greeny" is an encyclopedia when it comes to sports knowledge. He knows his stats, he knows memorable games from each sport, he remembers specific details about players, coaches, general managers and the game themselves and more importantly, he makes sure that what he reports is factually correct. 

Secondly, Greenberg does a great job of representing the voice of the fans. When talking about his favorite NFL team, the New York Jets, one can easily hear how passionate he his about the team. 

Greenberg also does a great job of representing sports fans as a whole when talking about various labor issues or things he wants to see changed in each sport. Recently, Greenberg expressed his opinions on why star players should not be sitting at the end of the season unless it is an injury.

One also has to admire the fact that Greenberg is an outstanding writer. He has written two sports books, Why My Wife Thinks I'm An Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad and Mike and Mike's Rules for Sports and Life and in showing his versatility, wrote his first novel, All You Could Ask For.

His first novel actually has absolutely nothing to do with sports. In fact, Greenberg takes on the role of three feminine voices in a novel that has to do with his friend, Heidi Armitage, who died after a Stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis.  

Greenberg is also a very charitable man. For example, all the proceeds for All You Could Ask For are being donated to the V Foundation - the cancer charity founded by the late North Carolina State basketball coach Jimmy Valvano.

As someone who wants to do make it in this world as a full-time hockey/sports writer or even broadcaster, there is not a better person for me to look up to than Mike Greenberg.