Jack Benjamin is a play-by-play broadcaster, host and on-air talent. Jack calls a wide variety of sports for various networks including CBS Sports Network, ESPN, FS1, NBC Sports, Westwood One and more. Jack’s play-by-play highlights include calling College Basketball for CBS Sports Network and FS1 (including Big East games), College Football for ESPN platforms, College Football on Westwood One and various sports for NBC including the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Jack also has five years of experience as a Division I radio play-by-play voice calling games for Nicholls State University, the University of Virginia (UVA), Florida International (FIU) and Davidson College. Jack also works as a TV host for the Southland Conference and Sun Belt Conference and has filled in as a radio host on multiple outlets including ESPN New Orleans.
In June 2021, 2022 and 2023, Jack was recognized by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s (LSWA) for excellence in radio and television in the category of “College Radio/Television Play-by-Play.” Jack graduated Magna Cum Laude from Santa Clara University in June 2018 and earned the Justin T. McCarthy Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. In May 2018, Jack was named an All-American, and ranked as the third-best collegiate broadcaster in the nation by the Sportscasters Talent Agency of America (STAA).
Born and raised in Armonk, New York, Jack grew up an avid Yankees, Knicks and Giants fan. One of the first voices he listened to on the radio was longtime Yankees broadcaster, John Sterling. Mike Breen and Michael Kay, the TV voices of the Knicks and Yankees, respectively, were always playing in the background, as was Bob Papa, the radio voice of the Giants.
Jack headed West for college to Santa Clara University (SCU), a Jesuit school best known for housing future NBA Hall of Famer, Steve Nash, in the late 1990’s.
When Jack arrived at Santa Clara in the fall of 2014, students had not broadcast games on KSCU, the student radio station, in more than 20 years. After countless phone calls, emails, and meetings, as well as hundreds of “mock broadcasts” into his handheld recorder over the course of his first two years on campus, Jack finally got the opportunity, on November 11, 2016, to do play-by-play for an SCU Basketball game on KSCU. He proceeded to broadcast every home game for the next two years. As a senior, Jack broadcast all SCU Men’s home games, in addition to a road game at #22 Saint Mary’s. KSCU also broadcast Santa Clara’s first round game at the 2018 West Coast Conference Tournament in Las Vegas, becoming the first West Coast Conference student radio station to broadcast a game since the tournament relocated to Las Vegas in 2009. To this day, Jack continues to consult with the KSCU Sports Broadcast Program to ensure that it thrives.
During his sophomore and junior summers of college, Jack gained valuable collegiate wood bat league baseball experience. In 2016, Jack worked as the Play-by-Play Voice and Media Relations Assistant for the Kalamazoo Growlers of the Northwoods League. During the 2017 summer, he served as the voice of the Yakima Valley Pippins of the West Coast League, calling 61 regular season games, three playoff contests and the West Coast League All-Star Game on AM 1460 ESPN Radio – Yakima. At the same time, Jack was the Pippins’ Media Relations Manager. He compiled 20-page game notes packets for every game, drafted all press releases and maintained the team’s website and social media accounts.
Over the course of his junior and senior years at Santa Clara, Jack worked as a freelance play-by-play voice across a variety of networks and platforms. Jack’s work included serving as Central Coast Sports’ play-by-play voice for the West Catholic Athletic League football and basketball radio “Game of the Week” on AM 1590 KLIV-San Jose. Jack also worked as a play-by-play voice for a variety of high school and junior college sports broadcast on various TV networks including KMVT 15, (simulcast on AT&T U-Verse channel 99, and Comcast channels 15 & 26), CreaTV, (simulcast on Comcast Channel 16 & 28), the NFHS Network and the Bay Area Online Sports Network.
For three years, Jack also hosted Overtime, a weekly sports talk show on KSCU. Jack’s show featured interviews with a variety of Santa Clara student-athletes and coaches, as well as athletes and personalities within the broader world of sports. Among Jack’s interviews were Chris Berman, who gave Jack the ‘liner’ to begin his talk show, Fox NFL Rules Analyst, Mike Pereira, and Tom Brady Sr., father of the six-time Super Bowl winning quarterback. When Super Bowl 50 was played in the Bay Area in February 2016, Jack attended Super Bowl Opening Night as a credentialed media member and interviewed Panthers Broncos, which he later played on his show. In September 2017, his annual NFL Draft segment was named a finalist for “Best Sportscast” for the yearly College Broadcasting Inc. (CBI) Awards.