About Barry Tompkins biography
Barry Tompkins is a 48-year network television veteran. He is a play-by-play broadcaster, a four-time Emmy Award winner, and in 2006 was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his work as a boxing commentator.
Barry was born and raised in San Francisco and began his career in local television at KPIX TV in 1968. Since then he has spent five years at NBC, ten years at HBO, eight years at ESPN, fifteen years at Fox Sports and currently does the ShoBox and Championship Boxing series' for Showtime while continuing to do a full schedule of college football and basketball.
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 200 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 Stanley Cup, and the Soccer World Cup.
Barry spent 35 years associated nationally with Pac 12 Conference football and basketball, and currently does Mountain West Conference football and Mountain West and WCC basketball for Time Warner Cable, Root Sports and Comcast Sports. He is also a weekly contributor on CSN Bay Area's Yahoo Sports Talk Live, a nightly one-hour sports conversation show.
In addition to his broadcasting work, Barry writes a humor column for the Marin Independent Journal and is a contributing columnist for Comcast Sports Net Bay Area. He also teaches Storytelling for Television at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA.
He is married to author Joan Ryan. They live in Sausalito, California. They have a son, Ryan who is 24 and are parents to a 3-year old Border Collie-Great Pyrenees mix named Rosie.
Marin Independent Journal columns
- 3/25/17
- Barry Tompkins: Would-be doctor, heal thyself
- My mother always thought I should have been a doctor. Most importantly, she wanted to be able to brag about me at her mahjongg group by starting every sentence with, "Well you know, as my son the doctor says …" Had I become a lawyer, it would have been like a silver medal for my mother. When I became a sportscaster she found little solace in her lady-friends' consoling her with, "Don't worry, he's young; someday he'll get a real job."…more (Marin IJ)
- 2/25/17
- Rain, rain, go away — really
- All right, enough. I am officially tired of rain. Do not be fooled by what may appear to be sunshine streaming in your windows this morning. It is an aberration. Not real. There will never be an entire week with sunshine again.…more (Marin IJ)
- 2/11/17
- Canada, California's on our way
- I'm feeling a little better about things this week. I guess all we who live in this state need to concern ourselves about now is whether we want to hook up with Canada or be an independent nation out there wallowing around in this big ol' world trying to make ends meet.…more (Marin IJ)
- 2/04/17
- Digging into canine social media
- I got a tweet this morning from my grand dog Penelope. She wanted to know if I was going to watch the Super Bowl. She referenced her Instagram account where I immediately went, only to find her sitting on the couch with her mother, formerly known as my daughter, and sporting a New England Patriots' jersey.…more (Marin IJ)
- 1/28/17
- Is that a diaper in your burger
- I have a piece of advice for Ronald McDonald. Satchel Page, the old baseball pitcher once said, "Don't look behind you — somethin' might be gainin' on ya'. Well, Mr. McDonald, those three new Big Macs that you trotted out this past week — you know, the one's with the special sauce giveaway — well they may be in the process of hardening their last artery.…more (Marin IJ)
- 1/21/17
- Circus isn't coming to town anymore
- P.T. Barnum must be rolling over in his grave this week. The man who brought Tom Thumb, Jumbo the Elephant and Lionel the Lion-Faced Boy to the world would have seen his baby given the last rites this week. The circus isn't coming to town this year kiddos — the circus is dead.…more (Marin IJ)
- 12/31/16
- Goodbye, holidays, and good riddance
- I have now reached the OD point. I am done with figuring out which gifts to buy for my loved ones. Done with entertaining. Done with present wrapping and celebrating. I've made my last toast, hugged my last visitor, wished my last sales clerk happy holidays.…more (Marin IJ)
- 12/03/16
- Nobody knows him better than his MacBook
- I am outraged this week. Metropolitan Life has fired Snoopy.…more (Marin IJ)
- 11/05/16
- Snoopy, it's no dog's life at MetLife anymore
- I am fine with being not quite as smart as my wife. This is not to suggest that I am not professionally competent enough to do much more than count coffee cans on an assembly line. It's more that she's well read, an organized thinker and able to defend her position with the effectiveness of a trial lawyer. I, on the other hand, can do the Jumble in less than a minute, finish the New York Times crossword puzzle in an hour and am reduced to babbling when confronted with my wife's logic. We've been married for 28 years now and I've yet to win an argument, even when I'm right.…more (Marin IJ)
Read earlier columns at marinij.com and csnbayarea.com.