We go back to the early days of Barry’s life and what his first aspirations were in life. A fun little conversation about his brief stop at a City College and the why his GPA was good considering….. well, you will find out. In high school he and some friends formed a music group and toured a bit with a stop at The Apollo in New York!
Career begin in advertising briefly before being named the promotion director at KCBS, the breaks he got form the right people at the right time which eventually led him to KPIX and in front of the camera for the very first time at a big time network at the time.
Barry begin his broadcast career in TV in 1968 and his boxing career in 1976 as he called the gold medal matches for boxing and field hockey in the 76’ Olympics. His first tennis broadcast was no other than Wimbledon and even did the 1978 Rose Bowl! After being in NY and back to SF we talk about the days at HBO and boxing. His famous fights he called that leads to a great, rare story about the Marvin Hagler v Sugar Ray Leonard MegaFight. You want to hear this!
Barry tells how he landed the role for Rocky IV, what that was like, a behind the scenes story, the money he received for the doing the movie and the checks that showed up later and still do. Great stuff here. We discuss the hall of fames he is in that includes the International Boxing HOF, his top memories that includes a wonderful insight into the friendship with Arthur Ashe and what lies ahead for Barry. This is a fantastic podcast!
Links:
Follow Barry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/barry_tompkins
Barry Tompkins Official Website: http://www.barrytompkins.com/
Video of Barry – Rocky IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-21i-OKCGYY
Leonard v Hagler Video of Fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH1U1jC0Lgc
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Extra 5:
What is Barry’s favorite sport to cover? Boxing? Hmmm
Talks about writing a humor column for Marian Independent Journal (Bay Area) for 16 years
Is there a book n the horizon?
Doing a live broadcast in all 50 states and which was the last one
How he met his wife Joan Ryan who is an author and has new book called Intangibles
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