Behind the succession plan for legendary broadcaster Mike Gorman’s retirement

Inside Mike Gorman’s Boston apartment, to the left of the desk in his family room, hangs a Celtics jersey embroidered with the number 1,000, a milestone gift that now represents less than half the games the broadcaster has called for the team during his 43-year tenure.

Drew Carter, his future full-time replacement, stared in awe at the piece of fabric when he went into the veteran broadcaster’s abode on Feb. 8 — while the two were taking a break from filming a segment preparing viewers for the transition of the two personalities.

“He’s been doing the job longer than I’ve been alive,” Carter told The Post.

Starting next season, Carter, a 26-year-old from Minnesota, will take over for Gorman as his successor after the legendary broadcaster announced his retirement will come at the end of Boston’s current basketball campaign.

Carter knows he isn’t Gorman — and isn’t trying to be.

As the Celtics’ current play-by-play announcer for away games, the broadcasting heir has already built up a reputation for his energy on broadcasts.

“I was really nervous taking over for the job. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I know how important the telecast is to people,” Carter said. “I don’t want to do a Mike Gorman impression, but I also don’t want to be too different from him. I was trying to balance all that at once while still being authentic to myself.”

Gorman is “old school” after dealing with “the mean streets of broadcasting” throughout his career, Boston’s color commentator Brian Scalabrine told The Post.

Gorman enlisted in the Navy during the early 1970s — not knowing where to go for a job — but he knew he wanted to stay in basketball, even considering coaching.

“I ended up talking about it,” Gorman told The Post.

He landed his first media job at a radio station in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he learned, “If you can sell it, you can do it.”

That compounded into eventually becoming Providence College’s play-by-play commentator, where he crossed paths with Tommy Heinsohn, a Hall of Fame NBA player who won 10 combined championships for the Celtics as both a coach and player over three decades.

After the duo called a handful of college games together, Heinsohn eventually recommended Gorman to be the Celtics’ play-by-play announcer.

During his first game at then-Boston Garden in 1981, Gorman recalled bringing color-coded notes listing various facts about players.

Siblings. Favorite hobbies. Shooting percentage from the past season.

Heinsohn waltzed into the booth, spotted the meticulous notes, and asked what they were.

He picked them up, crumpled them into a ball and tossed them off the balcony.

“We’re only going to talk about what we see in front of us,” Gorman recalled Heinsohn saying.

“That’s how we approached every game,” Gorman added. “We just called the game.”

The pair covered the highs and lows of Celtics basketball — from Larry Bird’s dominance in the ‘80s to the team’s forgettable ‘90s.

They both smiled with Paul Pierce, one of Gorman’s favorite Celtics players, while it rained confetti after Boston won their 2008 title. Through the decades, they formed a broadcasting one-two punch before Heinsohn died in 2020.

Scalabrine, who can relate to Carter as he took over full-time for Heinsohn after his death, said he received advice from Gorman about succeeding the Boston legend.

“People look at trying to take over for a person — like they do the whole comparison thing. It’s natural for that to happen,” Scalabrine said. “But Mike told me, ‘Scal, you just got to be yourself.’”

It’s the wisdom Scalabrine now imparted to Carter as he prepares to take over for Gorman.

Carter called his career so far a “series of super lucky breaks.”

He went to Syracuse University, a top broadcasting school that’s a breeding ground for announcers like Mike Tirico and Ian Eagle, rooming with Ian’s son, Noah, who is an alternate broadcaster for Nets games on YES Network.

Carter then spent two years in Alabama as a sports reporter and anchor before calling college sports with ESPN.

Despite the flagship name, Carter realized the network didn’t compare to working for a local station where he could develop an intimate relationship with a team’s fan base.

“When you’re calling games and you’re just in one place, then you’re on to the next one. I don’t know. It’s hard to feel that way,” Carter said. “Maybe you teach somebody something about their favorite team when you parachute into the broadcast. Or maybe you make a joke that makes somebody laugh. But it’s temporary.”

But an opportunity to call games for the Celtics came to fruition when NBC Sports Boston put forth a “succession plan” for Gorman’s retirement during early 2023, Carter said.

Carter interviewed, not thinking much of it, believing they would end up hiring “somebody who’s famous, or from Boston, or preferably both.”

An email eventually arrived in his inbox in mid-May, asking him to do a demo while the Celtics were in the middle of a playoff run.

Carter recalled responding to the message with an emphatic “YES!!!!” — much to his agent’s chagrin, who told him to act like he’s been there before.

Throughout the season, Gorman has helped groom Carter, talking with him about the job’s expectations and preparing him for when he’s gone.

He’s increased Carter’s knowledge of Boston, too, giving him restaurant recommendations and inviting him into his apartment — just a few hundred yards away from TD Garden.

“He’s done a really good job of being there, but not in [the] way at all. He doesn’t come in the picture like ‘Hey, I’m the guy now, look at me,’” Gorman said. “He’s making a lot of mental notes as to how the crowd handles me as a result of a long time being there.”

With the increased local popularity, Carter admits it’s still a shock for people to approach him and ask for a photo or talk about the team.

“Any time that happens, I’m smiling for like 10 minutes after,” he gushed.

The warm welcome from the Boston faithful has helped his stresses subside as he continues to follow Gorman’s advice and, soon enough, fill his shoes.

One fan who regularly sits on level 300 — the “real rowdy” bunch — approached him at Monica’s Trattoria, a staple Boston sandwich shop, and the two bantered about the team.

Another beckoned for him while he was doing a pregame shoot, calling him “Drew Cartah” in a thick Boston accent — Carter’s “Welcome to Boston moment No. 1”

And while ascending the stairs to TD Garden’s concourse during the season, a “diehard” stopped Carter in his tracks.

“You’re doing a great f–cking job,” he said.