Former Wolfpack basketball player making voice heard in Olympics golf booth
Posted August 12, 2016 12:30 a.m. EDT
Updated August 12, 2016 10:49 a.m. EDT
The Olympic golf course is spectacular. It's a country club course at its best. There's quite a contrast to the immediate area surrounding it.
"Gil Hanse built the course out of nothing. There was nothing there except a dump. Literally. He built that dump into a championship golf course," NBC broadcaster Terry Gannon said.
Gannon has spent the last few days gauging the Olympic mindset of the golfing participants.
"I think players are shocked at what they are experiencing here," Gannon said. "And they are texting back home to the ones who didn’t come and rubbing it in. "
"If you come here with a mindset that this is different, this is not the private jet to the TPC where you're playing for a $1 million first place prize that week, this is an experience to jump in and be with the greatest athletes in the world, and be a part of it, be one small part of it," Gannon said.
This is Gannon’s fourth Olympics as a broadcaster. In Vancouver, London and Sochi he showcased his versatility by covering multiple events. A long-distance of broadcasting improvement from his days as an academic All-American basketball player at NC State.
"It’s a little different now than it was when I was begging to make 50 bucks on a Charlotte Knights broadcast or a WRAL PM Magazine segment," Gannon said. "Coach V(alvano) giving me pieces on his show so I could go learn TV. Here, I’m doing the same thing, I’m just doing it with the greatest athletes in the world and greatest broadcasters in the world."
Gannon doesn’t talk a lot about his basketball career and the 1983 national championship he was a part of. “What’s the point,” he said.
"Believe me, every aspect of my experience at NC State, in Raleigh, with Jim Valvano goes into what I do today," he said. "There’s not a day that goes by that I’m on the job that it doesn’t have an impact and I don’t think about it. Every single day."
Gannon used to walk around with a video tape asking photographers to record him on camera so he could put together a resume. He has earned the spot he is currently in through hard work, not relying on his name or athletic accomplishments.
"You create a whole new persona in life for yourself," Gannon said. "This is the one I’m living in now and I’m having a blast."
