Former Matador Professor and Coach Dick Enberg Inducted to Baseball Hall of Fame
Dick Enberg celebrates his sixth decade in broadcasting with the MLB Frick Award.
Dick Enberg is one of the most recognizable names in sports broadcasting. He’s announced Super Bowls, Wimbledon and is currently the television voice of the San Diego Padres. Enberg is also a piece of California State University, Northridge history — technically, San Fernando Valley State College history.
During the campus’ early years, he was a professor of health education (1961-65) and assistant baseball coach (1962-64), as well as a special assistant to then-President Ralph Prator.
Now, CSUN is firmly represented in Cooperstown, thanks to Enberg’s recent Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting. The award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame was presented to him in San Diego. During a press conference, the 80-year-old Enberg reminisced about his career, even crediting his mother for his signature “Oh my!” call.
“She used to say it in dismay about something I had done or encountered,” Enberg said. “It’s a nice Midwestern term, a term of acknowledgment. You’d go to the marketplace in the Midwest and you hear folks talking, ‘Did you hear about the Jones boy? Oh, my, is that right? And how about the game on Saturday? Oh, my.’ And so it’s been a good friend of mine when I can’t think of anything else to say, and certainly this morning, as my wife said, I was blubbering too much to verbalize an ‘Oh, my!’ It’s been that kind of day.”
Enberg was one of 10 finalists for baseball’s highest broadcasting honor. He joins local legends Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrin of the Dodgers as members of the Hall of Fame. Enberg received a congratulatory phone call from Scully shortly after receiving the news of his election, during baseball’s annual winter meetings in San Diego.
“It took me to my knees,” Enberg said of the call from the Hall of Fame. “Baseball is family. This award takes me all the way back to my youth and my dreams. As my high school and college friends said, ‘Enberg, you always thought you were a good player, but you only talked a good game.’ It worked out OK.”
Enberg will be formally inducted in Cooperstown on July 25, 2015. It has been five decades since he served as a professor and coach, but the CSUN Athletic Hall of Famer very much remembers his roots. Enberg is giving back to the university by committing to a six-year pledge to provide post-graduate scholarships for CSUN student-athletes.
The first scholarship honoree was Melissa Doll, a Matador women’s water polo player who will graduate in May with degrees in mathematics and secondary teaching. The Pennsylvania native plans to attend graduate school at West Chester University in her home state, after earning a 3.64 GPA and ranking in the school’s top 10 in several women’s water polo career categories, including field blocks, steals, assists, field goal attempts and field goal percentage.
“These, in my opinion, are the ‘crème de la crème’ of our college students and are deserving of our full praise,” Enberg told GoMatadors.com. “In that spirit, I’m pleased to offer an annual graduate scholarship to the CSUN student-athlete who exemplifies what is the best of academic and athletic life on the CSUN campus.”
The sportscaster also noted that for the past 30 years, he has been a spokesman for the Academic All-America Program, honoring student-athletes throughout the United States who have distinguished themselves in the classroom and the athletic arena.
“Dick Enberg is one of the many Matador fans who value the strength of a quality education for our student-athletes,” said Brandon Martin, CSUN’s director of intercollegiate athletics. “Dick has always shown a strong passion for CSUN, and his scholarship contributions will bear strong results for our student-athletes who will be able to pursue graduate studies. The university is proud of Dick Enberg and his many accomplishments as both an educator and a sportscaster.”
Enberg, for his part, is appreciative of a life that has spanned several decades and sports. The award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame is the proverbial icing on the cake of a career that he acknowledges was — and still is — amazing.
“For 80 years, I’ve loved this game as far back as I can remember,” he said. “To have this as a culmination of my professional life and my love for a sport, it is just too good to be true.”
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