About Barry Tompkins biography
Barry was born and raised in San Francisco and began his career in local television there at KPIX-TV in 1968. Since then he has spent five years at NBC, ten years at HBO, eight years at ESPN, and the past fourteen years at Fox Sports.
His credits include play-by-play commentary of The Super Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the NCAA Final Four, eight Olympic Games, The Tour de France, Wimbledon, the French Open and the U.S. Open Tennis, the World Gymnastics Championships, World Swimming and Diving Championships, World Figure Skating Championships, and horse racing’s Triple Crown, World Cup Skiing, San Francisco Giants baseball, and over 100 World Championship fights.
In addition he has covered the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, and PGA golf events, The Indy 500, Baseball World Series, hockey’s Stanley Cup, and the Soccer World Cup.
Barry is in his 30th year as the voice of Pac-10 Conference Football and Basketball for Fox Sports Net and continues to broadcast a wide variety of events on national television.
In addition to his broadcasting work, Barry writes a humor column for the Marin Independent Journal and is a contributing columnist for Comcast Sports News Bay Area.
He is married to author Joan Ryan. They live in Marin County, California with their son Ryan, 19, now a freshman at Mitchell College in New London, CT, and Bill The Dog, a 9-year old mutt who believes for all the world that he is in fact a human—he just has two more feet.
About Barry Tompkins biography
- 08/21/10
- Remembering when school had class
- Let me just check. This is still August isn't it? And yet there seems to be a parade of our future leaders, backpacks chock full of necessities - bubble gum, broken pencils, organizers that soon will find their way to the bottom of the backpack like lemmings seeking the sea, and brand-new jeans (pretorn for your convenience). They trudge, heads down, acne gleaming in the morning sun, anxious to fill their little heads with the knowledge that only an underpaid and overworked teacher with too big a classload and too many demands that have nothing to do with teaching can impart.…more (Marin IJ)
- 08/14/10
- Avoid commas, even if it kills you
- I have always been of the belief that one's life is chronicled merely by reading the vital statistics.…more (Marin IJ)
- 07/17/10
- You can see Slovenia, but you can't call it
- Wow, it seems like the good folks at Apple have fallen upon the dreaded "oops."…more (Marin IJ)
- 07/03/10
- Grab your goofy hat - it's time for a parade
- I know it's obligatory to like parades and I realize I'm kind of anti-American to say that I look upon them - with few exceptions - as masses of people walking aimlessly and wearing goofy hats or banners. They are often accompanied by several decorated pickup trucks, the odd baton twirler, people on horseback and the middle school band.…more (Marin IJ)
- 06/26/10
- A hairy situation, no matter how you spin it
- I have always had a deep seeded fondness for public relations people. I think their job is a difficult one. Creating interest in a person or product that has gone somehow unnoticed and making it something that the public suddenly feels it just has to have. …more (Marin IJ)
- 06/19/10
- Like father, like son, like father
- My father would have been 102 years old this year. Roughly the age I always thought of him as back when I was a kid. My dad would have fallen into that category of "young fogy." He was a great athlete and youthful in appearance, but his views on life, love and child-rearing were steeped somewhere in the Elizabethan era. He would rant long and loud about my having my elbows on the table or the proper way to hold a fork, but not take any particular notice of my overserved body being wrapped around the toilet bowl on one of the many evenings I was out exercising the freedoms of being 16 and stupid. It never entered his mind that I could possibly be A) 16, or B) as incredibly stupid as I was.…more (Marin IJ)
- 06/12/10
- Up in the air ... but still on time
- I haven't written about the travails of modern-day air travel in some time - probably because I've pretty much grown numb to the whole experience in recent years. But as I sit on United Airlines flight No. 8 bound for New York City, I just can't help but marvel at how airline service these days finishes a distant second to say, In-N-Out Burger.…more (Marin IJ)
Read earlier columns at marinij.com and csnbayarea.com.