Brad Michael Sham (born August 16, 1949) is an American sportscaster who is known as the "Voice of the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divis ...

". Sham is currently the play-by-play announcer on the

Dallas Cowboys Radio Network The Dallas Cowboys Radio Network is an American radio network broadcasting all Dallas Cowboys football games to stations across all of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico during the NFL season. Since the 2009 NFL season, it has be ...

Biography

Sham has been with the Cowboys since 1976, when he was hired to be their color analyst alongside play-by-play man

Verne Lundquist Merton Laverne Lundquist Jr. (born July 17, 1940) is an American sportscaster. Biography Early life and career Lundquist was born in Duluth, Minnesota. He graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas, before attending Texas Lutheran U ...

. Sham also held the position of Sports Director at former Cowboys Radio Network flagship station 1080 AM KRLD between 1976 and 1981. When Lundquist left for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

in 1984, Sham became the lead play-by-play man, a position he has held ever since (save for three seasons in the mid-1990s). In 2003, Sham wrote ''Dallas Cowboys: Colorful Tales of America's Greatest Teams'' (). He also contributes weekly columns to dallascowboys.com. The 2009 season marked Sham's 30th year with the organization; the longest of any broadcaster with the team, albeit not consecutive due to his three-year absence from the club from 1995–97. During his absence from the Cowboys, Sham called Texas Rangers games on the radio with

Eric Nadel Eric Nadel (born May 16, 1951) is a sports announcer on radio broadcasts for the Texas Rangers baseball organization. In 2014, he was honored with the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Muse ...

between 1995 and 1997. Sham has done NFL play-by-play for the ''

NFL on Westwood One ''The NFL on Westwood One Sports'' is the branding for Cumulus Broadcasting subsidiary Westwood One's radio coverage of the National Football League. These games are distributed throughout the United States and Canada (the latter through TSN Rad ...

'', the ''

NFL on Fox The ''NFL on Fox'' (also known as ''Fox NFL'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Game coverage is usually preceded by '' Fox NFL Kick ...

'', '' TNT Sunday Night Football'', and the ''

NFL on CBS The ''NFL on CBS'' is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The network has aired NFL game telecasts si ...

'' for one game in 2004. He has also worked games for

NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally ...

and the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

Dallas Desperados The Dallas Desperados were a professional arena football team based in Dallas, Texas. The Desperados played in the Eastern Division of the Arena Football League from 2002 to 2008. The franchise began play in as an expansion team, and have post ...

. Sham has extensive experience broadcasting collegiate sports, having done play-by-play for NCAA athletics, most notably the

NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball In Unite ...

and college football. He spent over a decade as the radio voice of the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...

' football and basketball teams (mostly in the 1980s), which also aired on flagship KRLD and on the Mutual Southwest Radio Network. Sham has been in the booth for 26

Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game that has been held annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its namesake stadium in ...

s, calling play-by-play for 25 games and serving as the analyst for one. He has also served as a play-by-play broadcaster for the

Big 12 Network The Big 12 Network (stylized as the Big XII Network) was a syndicated package featuring live broadcasts of College basketball events from the Big 12 Conference that was broadcast under that branding from 2008 until 2014. It was owned and operated ...

basketball Saturdays, as well as for select

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

Network Big 12 games. Sham has also worked

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...

games for the Dallas Burn (now

FC Dallas FC Dallas is an American professional soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise began play in 1996 as a charter club of the le ...

) and

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League may refer to: *North American Soccer League (1968–1984), a former Division I league *North American Soccer League (2011–2017) The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league ba ...

games for the

Dallas Tornado The Dallas Tornado was a soccer team based in Dallas, Texas that played in the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1967 to 1981. Of the twelve teams that comprised the U.S. in 1967, the Tornado franchise played the longest–15 seasons. T ...

. He also provided color commentary for ESPN's coverage of the NASL in 1982. He also was part of the crew that covered the

1998 Winter Olympics The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 ( ja, 長野1998), was a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Japan, with some events taking place in th ...

in Nagano, Japan. Sham made his acting debut in the 2008 movie, ''W.''

Honors

Sham has won the NSSA Texas Sportscaster of the Year award 11 times and is a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Sham is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. Cory Provus, broadcaster for the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...

is his cousin. He graduated from the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

School of Journalism A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. 'J-School' is an increasingly used term for a journalism department at a school or college. Journalists in most parts of the ...

in 1970. He was a brother of the

Alpha Epsilon Pi Alpha Epsilon Pi (), commonly known as AEPi, is a college fraternity founded at New York University in 1913 by Charles C. Moskowitz and ten other men. The fraternity has more than 150 active chapters across the United States, Canada, United K ...

fraternity.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sham, Brad Arena football announcers 1949 births Living people American Basketball Association announcers American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers Association football commentators College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Dallas Cowboys announcers Dallas Mavericks announcers Jewish American sportspeople Major League Baseball broadcasters National Basketball Association broadcasters National Football League announcers NFL Europe broadcasters North American Soccer League (1968–1984) commentators Sportspeople from Dallas Texas Rangers (baseball) announcers Missouri School of Journalism alumni 21st-century American Jews