The Emmy-award winning journalist from Hendersonville who got away

Probably the highest profile journalist to come from Hendersonville was on pace to attend Hendersonville High, but ended up going to junior high and high school in Miami.

Jim Lampley, born in Hendersonville in 1949, attended local schools through sixth grade. But even after moving to Miami with his mom, he spent every summer in Hendersonville.

When it came time for college, Lampley returned to his native state to attend the University of North Carolina, where he majored in English and earned a master’s degree from UNC’s Department of Radio, Television and Motion Pictures.

Lampley then rose to prominence as a reporter and broadcaster for ABC Sports. Among his highlights at ABC were covering the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, which included the “Miracle on Ice” hockey victory over the Soviet Union, and co-anchoring Super Bowl XIX with Al Michaels.

Lampley then moved to NBC Sports, where he continued broadcasting the Olympics. In 2008, he covered his 14th Olympic Games, which at the time was the most ever for an American sportscaster.

However, boxing became the hallmark of Lampley’s career. From 1988-2018, he was lead boxing announcer for HBO, calling many of the sport’s famous moments, including Buster Douglas’s stunning upset of Mike Tyson for the world heavyweight championship.

Lampley’s career resume includes multiple Emmys, two of which for best sports journalism as a senior reporter for HBO RealSports. In 2015, Lampley was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He now lives in Chapel Hill and instructs in the media studies department at UNC.

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: The Emmy-award winning journalist from Hendersonville who got away