National sports broadcaster Todd A. Harris didn’t particularly enjoy taking exams in BYU’s testing center, but says, “I had a great time learning to snowboard on the slope just outside the Grant Building, which houses the testing center.”
What he could not have predicted was that within a few years he would be commenting on snowboarding events for ESPN. Now with NBC Sports and the NBS Sports, Harris was a play-by-play announcer for all snowboarding events at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Harris came to BYU fully expecting to study biology as a pre-med major, but his discomfort with blood—particularly the idea of making an incision—prompted a change. He had been a standout athlete and the newspaper sports editor at his high school in Portland, Ore., so he happily traded a scalpel for a microphone.
It was a good decision. He has covered everything from the World’s Strongest Man competitions to ball and stick sports, major cycling and sailing events, and the Olympics.
