Longtime Celtics announcer Mike Gorman on why he still plans to retire after this season
"This team has a chance to win a championship and I’d just like to be around for that.”
In March, longtime play-by-play announcer Mike Gorman, who’s been calling Celtics games since 1991, told the Boston Globe’s Chad Finn that he plans to step away from the mic after the 2023-24 NBA season.
Speaking recently to The Athletic’s Jared Weiss, Gorman confirmed that this upcoming Celtics season will likely be his final one with the team.
“If I had to pin myself down, I would say, ‘Yeah, next year will probably be my last year,’” Gorman said. “If we were looking at the roster from the ‘90s right now, I’d be saying, ‘I’m done.’ But this team has a chance to win a championship and I’d just like to be around for that.”
Under Gorman’s watch, the Celtics have captured four championships, with the Dorchester native forming a dynamic broadcasting duo next to Tommy Heinsohn for 39 years before Heinsohn’s death in 2020.
Gorman was named the 2021 recipient of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award, given annually to an outstanding basketball writer or announcer.
The 2022-23 season was a challenging one for Gorman, who suffered a detached retina in his right eye in February that required surgery. After undergoing his procedure, he returned a few days later to call a Celtics/Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, sporting an eye patch.
Even with the quick turnaround, it was a challenge for Gorman to call games up to his normal standards given his vision issues.
“I still thought I could do the games and it wouldn’t be an all-out disaster,” Gorman said. “But I was going to have to look at not doing any more basketball games this year just because [the doctors] want to be conservative and I wasn’t gonna do that. I wasn’t physically sick or in any pain and just couldn’t see. But that’s kind of the bottom line of your job. I tried to fake it.”
Gorman was primarily limited to home games the rest of the regular season, only traveling by car to games in New York and Philadelphia. He was cleared for air travel just in time for Game 6 of Boston’s first-round matchup against the Hawks this spring.
Gorman, 77, will be interested to see who ultimately replaces him as Boston’s top TV play-by-play announcer moving forward.
“Once I decide that I’m gone, I’m going to be fascinated to watch the process to replace me,” Gorman said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a hard job to replace me, but I think it’ll be interesting to see what they choose and how they choose it. Will the feeling around town be like, ‘Jesus, Gorman is finally gone. I thought he would never leave?’ Or will it be, ‘Jeez, I wish we had Mike back?’”
This is not the first time Gorman said that the 2023-24 season will be his final one with Boston.
“That would be 42 years,” Gorman told Finn back in March. “That’s enough for me, thank you. It’s a lovely number and I’m really proud of that number, but I also think it’s time for somebody else to get a chance at that job.”
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