Chris Marlowe

Christian Marlowe (born September 28, 1951) is an American professional sportscaster based in Denver, Colorado. He currently is the play-by-play announcer for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association in the fall, winter and spring, and in the summer he is a play-by-play announcer for the Association of Volleyball Professionals. He is a former collegiate basketball and volleyball player and played on the US National Men's Volleyball Team. He played beach volleyball extensively and won numerous tournaments on the Open beach circuit. He also was a captain of the US men's volleyball team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games.

Early life Marlowe was born in Los Angeles, California on September 28, 1951, and grew up in Pacific Palisades. His father, Hugh Marlowe, was an actor and starred in over 30 movies. His mother, K.T. Stevens, was also an actor, and appeared in 11 films. Marlowe's maternal grandfather was the prolific film director Sam Wood, who was a three-time Academy Award nominee.

Marlowe grew up playing volleyball on the beach. He was a two-sport standout at Palisades High School in Los Angeles, California, playing basketball and volleyball. His Palisades High volleyball teams won three Los Angeles city championships.

College career Marlowe was awarded an athletic scholarship at San Diego State University, where he played both basketball and volleyball.

In his senior year, Marlowe was voted team captain. California teams still dominated the national scene, and Long Beach State was the top ranked team and the favorite to win the title. In the regional finals, San Diego State met defending national champion UCLA at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in a rematch of the 1972 national championship match. The Bruins went up 2–0 before a three-game comeback by the Aztecs eliminated the Bruins from the tournament. After the win, Marlowe commented to a Sports Illustrated writer: "When we came back and beat UCLA in Pauley, it was like it was willed to be. It was like God came down from the mountain and was rooting for the Aztecs." In preliminary round robin play held in Peterson Gym, the Aztecs beat Army 2-0 (15–1, 15–5) and Ball State 2-1 (17–19, 15–12, 15–5) before losing to Long Beach State 1-2 (15–10, 13–15, 7–15). Long Beach State ended round robin play with a perfect 3–0 record and the #1 seed. SDSU was seeded second with a 2–1 record, Ball State was third seed and Army was seeded fourth. In their semi-final, SDSU defeated Ball State 3-0 (15–5, 15–7, 15–10) while Long Beach State defeated Army 3-0 (15–5, 15–1, 15–2), setting up a championship final between San Diego State and Long Beach State. A record crowd showed up at the San Diego Sports Arena for the championship final.

The 1973 San Diego State volleyball team finished with a collegiate won-loss record of 20–5. The facility opened in 1978 in Dayton, Ohio. However, California was the hot bed of volleyball talent at the time, and though the nation's top players were willing to play on the national team, many were unable to relocate to Dayton. In 1980, the US national team again failed to qualify for the Olympic games, this time held in Moscow. The United States had boycotted the games, making the failure to qualify a moot point, but it was clear the US team had to make a change. In 1981 the national team training center was moved to San Diego, California. He appealed to SDSU Aztecs coach Jack Henn to help him make the transition from outside hitter to setter. "Chris and I had a little bit of a falling-out after ’73," Henn said. "But he realized he had to change positions to play in the Olympics. He could have gone off in his gold chains, but he humbled himself and asked for help." Marlowe was asked to rejoin the team. In a show of support, his teammates selected him team captain by a unanimous vote on his first day back. Playing at the Olympic games and winning the gold medal were lifetime achievements for Marlowe. Asked how he felt, Marlowe said "I felt like I was on Cloud 10, one notch higher than Cloud 9." Scates got to know Marlowe as Marlowe used to work out at the Bruin gym, and Scates recommended him. Marlowe's first job was providing color commentary for the NCAA championship match between UCLA and Pepperdine. When Marlowe started with Prime Ticket, his first partner on play-by-play was Lynn Shackleford. He next worked with Keith Erickson. When Erickson quit that opened up the play-by-play spot that Marlowe had been preparing for. Marlowe moved over to play-by-play and was joined in the booth by former teammate Paul Sunderland as his analyst. Marlowe and Sunderland knew each other well, and had first played together on the U.S. National Indoor Volleyball Team in 1975. "When Paul moved into the color spot that really clicked. We were old friends, played together on the national team for years, and our chemistry was fantastic." Marlowe and Sunderland called their first volleyball event in 1985, doing the college regional playoff match between San Diego State and Pepperdine. Their first work broadcasting at an Olympic games was at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona in 1992. They teamed up again for the Olympics in Atlanta, and again four years later in Sydney.

Moving from analyst/color commentator to play-by-play was a big step-up in difficulty for Marlowe, but it meant many more broadcast opportunities. "It was smart to move to play-by-play because there is always someone else coming up who can fill the analyst role. Once I started doing that, I realized I could be good at it. I’m smart, and quick, good with numbers and could set up the analyst." Soon Marlowe was branching out into basketball, and then other sports as well. "My bosses at Prime Ticket started letting me do basketball – I also played that – and that led to me doing other things like boxing, gymnastics, swimming, water polo … even windsurfing."

Marlowe has worked to become very versatile. In his nearly 40-year career in sports broadcasting, he has covered and announced a variety of sporting events. Marlowe called Pacific 10 Basketball for FOX Sports Northwest in addition to handling USC Trojan play-by-play duties for FOX Sports West. Marlowe also did Pacific-10 college football play-by-play for FOX Sports Northwest, NCAA college basketball on ESPN and FOX, San Diego State basketball and WUSA Soccer for San Diego's Cox Cable, AVP Professional Beach Volleyball for NBC, college volleyball for CSTV, and NCAA Championships in swimming, diving, gymnastics and volleyball for ESPN. He has also called aerobics, baseball, boxing, cliff-diving, equestrian show jumping, fencing, poker, rhythmic gymnastics, skiing, college soccer, track and field, water polo, windsurfing and wrestling. He has hosted sports programs such as the "UCLA Sports Magazine" for Prime Sports, the "Just for Kicks" soccer show on ESPN, the "Marlowe Minute" for Dig Magazine on FOX Sports West and the "Aztec Sports Weekly" for Cox Cable.

Along with assignments for Fox Sports Net, Marlowe was the announcer for every Association of Volleyball Professionals event in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was also an occasional anchor on the Southern California Sports Report. Marlowe is a veteran of six consecutive Olympic telecasts on NBC, starting with calling play-by-play for NBC's coverage of beach volleyball at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Marlowe also has done AVP events for NBC, college volleyball for CSTV, and volleyball, football and basketball for ESPN.

Marlowe has seen a number of changes in sports broadcasting over his career, among which is having women in front of the camera. He notes having enjoyed working with Michele Tafoya and Heather Cox, comments that both are very good at their jobs, and states having women as sports broadcasters has been a good change in the sports broadcasting industry.

Personal life Most of the year Marlowe resides in Denver, Colorado with his wife, Laurie. In the summers, they move to Manhattan Beach, California. They have two grown daughters, both of whom were standout setters for Arapahoe High School in Denver. Their older daughter, MacKenzie, graduated from Chapman University. She is interested in working in the film industry and has interned at DiNovi Pictures. She currently is an executive assistant at William Morris Endeavor. Their younger daughter, Grace, attends the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Awards In 1986, Marlowe was inducted into the USVBA Hall of Fame in Wichita, Kansas. Eight years later in 1994, San Diego State inducted Marlowe into their Aztec Hall of Fame. The California Beach Volleyball Hall of Fame elected to induct Marlowe into their hall later that same year. Finally, on 23 April 2017, Marlowe was inducted into the Los Angeles City Section sports Hall of Fame.

At his induction into the Los Angeles City Section sports Hall of Fame, Marlowe spoke of the athletic accomplishments he valued most. Among these, he listed winning three LA city championships at Palisades High School, an NCAA championship at San Diego State University, being selected first team All American in his senior year at San Diego State, being twice selected MVP at the USVBA national championships, winning four USVBA Open team national championships, winning the World Championship and 8 other tournaments on the beach circuit, including the two Manhattans, and a gold medal at the Olympic games. Of them all, what he prized most was winning the Olympic gold medal in front of his family and friends at the games held in Los Angeles in 1984.