Terry Bradshaw says his time as a sports broadcaster is coming to an end, and he made that clear on Tuesday while talking with NBC News about his new memoir, Looking for Terry. At 78, the Fox NFL Sunday mainstay said the end of his television run is drawing near, even if he did not attach a date to it.
That matters because Bradshaw has been on the Fox NFL Sunday desk since 1994, the year he joined Fox and started appearing on its Sunday pregame show. He told News, “I realize my time on television as a sports broadcaster is coming to an end,” a blunt remark from a man whose face has been tied to the broadcast for decades.
Bradshaw’s television life began long before Fox. He started as an analyst in 1984, the year he retired from playing, after a career with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1970 through 1983 that included four Super Bowl wins, two Super Bowl MVP awards and a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989. He later worked for CBS before moving to Fox in 1994, and he has remained part of the Sunday pregame show ever since.
What gives the comment its edge is the way Bradshaw framed it. He also said, “I just love life,” and cited Billy Graham’s line that “the day you retire is the day you start dying.” In the same conversation, he said, “I’m a workaholic; I love to work.” The two ideas sit side by side: an acknowledgment that the broadcast career is nearing its end, and a refusal to sound ready to stop working altogether.
That tension is familiar in Bradshaw’s memoir, which also deals with cancer and depression and the harder parts of life away from the cameras. He said it was difficult to open up about those issues as a former NFL player, and he said he knew he was nearing the end of his broadcasting career. What remains unclear is not whether he sees the finish line, but when Fox NFL Sunday will have to move on without one of the two original voices who have been there since the beginning.
