updated April 11, 2008

After thirty-four years as a network television sportscaster, and with a vast array of credits in television, radio, movies and the internet, HBO's Jim Lampley is one of America's most accomplished broadcasters. His journey has been blessed by an unusual variety of firsts, onlys and somethings entirely different. He was the youngest of all major network sportscasters when he started. He has achieved unique longevity to become one of the most enduring performers in his craft. He has covered more Olympics than any other sportscaster, and in recent years he has expanded beyond the boundaries of sports to make a mark in politics and public affairs. He also runs a successful entertainment production company in Hollywood and has owned and operated two large restaurants.

Presently, Lampley is best known for his work on HBO Boxing telecasts. Lampley serves as the blow-by-blow announcer on all World Championship Boxing and HBO Pay-Per-View productions. In twenty years at HBO, he's called more than 500 fights, and for his work he has been nominated in each of the past two years for the Sports Emmy for "Outstanding Play-By-Play," a distinction which in effect places him among the top five event sportscasters in the industry. In 1992, Lampley was honored with the Sam Taub Award for "Excellence in Broadcast Journalism" presented by the Boxing Writers of America Association. He hosted the HBO documentary series "Legendary Nights," which captured a Sports Emmy Award for "Outstanding Edited Sports Series."

Calling the fights on HBO and helping to host the Olympics on NBC are Lampley's only on-air television commitments now, as he has builds his career in production and film. He maintains a continuing presence in radio by filling in for Jim Rome on Rome's nationally syndicated sports show when Rome vacations, and also by filling in occasionally for syndicated progressive political talk host Ed Schultz.

Lampley's production company Crystal Spring Productions first completed the feature film Welcome to Hollywood, debuting in theaters summer of 2000 and then later on HBO and Cinemax. The company has a variety of other theatrical and television film projects set up and underway, including a feature film project on John L. Sullivan set to star Thomas Jane as the Great John L.: a book adaptation about slavery and the young Mark Twain, written by Academy Award-winner Sir Ronald Harwood (The Pianist); a hilarious spoof on sportscasters and their vanities starring Lampley himself and titled The Skip Lightning Show; an award-winning avante garde documentary about high school football in Eastern Pennsylvania titled The Last Game, now in general video distribution; and a narrative adaptation of The Last Game, the screenplay for which has just been completed by sports movie titan Ron Shelton.

In addition to producing feature films, Lampley also appears in them, cast as himself. His most recent appearances were in the films Rocky Balboa, Blades of Glory and Balls of Fury. In 2008 his voice will be heard in two more movies, Zombie Strippers and Death Race.

Jim Lampley first appeared on national television in 1974. He was chosen from a talent hunt to help inaugurate a new role called the "college age reporter" on ABC's national telecasts of college football. Lampley concluded graduate school at the University of North Carolina, and a few weeks later launched the first of three seasons spent prowling the sidelines in Birmingham, Columbus, Lincoln, Ann Arbor, and so forth. It set him up for a thirteen-year matriculation at ABC Sports, working football, baseball, Wide World of Sports and five Olympic Games.

In 1987 Lampley left ABC and went to work for CBS in Los Angeles. In the next five years he anchored sports and then, for three and a half years, the 6:00 and 11:00 news at KCBS-TV; functioned as the sports correspondent for "CBS This Morning" in New York; took over hosting boxing and Wimbledon for HBO; hosted sports talk radio shows on WFAN in New York and KMPC in Los Angeles; and went to the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics as a news anchor.

In 1992 Jim Lampley went to work for NBC Sports, for whom he hosted golf and NFL football in 1993 and 1994, and anchored late night Olympic coverage at Barcelona and Atlanta. In 1995, he added reporting on the magazine show "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" to his duties at HBO, and on that program twice won the Emmy Award for Best Sports Journalism, along with a third Emmy for writing on HBO's Wimbledon coverage. In 1998, he anchored the Nagano Winter Olympics and the Goodwill Games for Turner Sports. He went to Sydney in 2000 and Salt Lake City in 2002 to anchor literally hundreds of hours of programming for MSNBC and CNBC. His 2004 appearance as NBC daytime host in Athens marked his twelfth Olympic assignment as a broadcaster, equaling the number attended by ABC's Jim McKay. His work at Torino as NBC daytime and late night host was a record-setting 13th Olympic assignment and moved him past McKay, and he expects to continue with upcoming NBC Olympics assignments, including Beijing in 2008.

Jim Lampley lives in Del Mar, California with his nineteen-year-old daughter Andrea Walker and sixteen-year-old son Aaron Lampley. Jim also keeps an apartment near his two daughters by previous marriage, twenty-eight-year-old Brooke Lampley, who deals 20th Century and Impressionism for Christie's in New York, and twenty-one-year-old Victoria Lampley, who is a junior majoring in film at Bard College.