Marty Smith signs new contract with ESPN - Roanoke Times

Marty Smith signs new contract with ESPN - Roanoke Times

ESPN has cut loose a number of reporters and anchors in recent years, but it is keeping Marty Smith in the fold.

Smith, a Giles High School and Radford University graduate, said Wednesday he has signed a new multiyear contract with ESPN.

He will continue to serve as a reporter for ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and “College GameDay,” covering college football and other sports. He will keep hosting his monthly ESPN2 interview show “Marty Smith’s America.” And he will continue to co-host his Saturday morning ESPN Radio show “Marty and McGee.”

“My greatest passion is storytelling. … There’s nowhere, as far as I’m concerned, in media, but certainly in sports, that compares to ESPN,” Smith said in a phone interview from the University of Alabama, where he is covering the Crimson Tide football team as it prepares for the College Football Playoff title game. “I’m very blessed that the … executive staff believed in me and offered me a new deal. It took about eight seconds to sign it.

“It’s the greatest job in the world, and the most rewarding. And I just can’t believe I have it.”

Smith, 41, has worked for ESPN since November 2006. He had signed his previous extension in the fall of 2014; that deal ran through 2017.

“I want to continue to be able to tell stories that resonate,” Smith said. “The No. 1 thing that I want to do over the next three years is continue to positively impact the lives of the people that I meet.”

Smith’s “SportsCenter” assignments have ranged from accompanying Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan football team on a trip to Rome to spending a day with golfer Rory McIlroy to reporting from Iceland during the 2016 UEFA European soccer championship.

Smith puts his unique spin on stories. The day before the Miami football team hosted Virginia Tech in November, Smith paid tribute to Miami coach Mark Richt’s fondness for diving by doing a back flip of his own — live on “SportsCenter.”

“I had never done a back flip off the side of the pool, much less from the top of the high-dive platform,” Smith said. “I don’t like heights or water.”

Former Pulaski County High School, Virginia Tech and NFL place-kicker Shayne Graham recently tweeted that he feared his accent would have held him back if he had pursued broadcasting, so he respects Smith for embracing his accent.

“That Southern accent thing, not only was it not a detriment to me, it ultimately became a benefit because it separated me from the pack,” Smith said.

Smith’s ESPN duties used to be confined to reporting on NASCAR. He covered Cup racing for “SportsCenter” and the now-defunct shows “NASCAR Countdown” and “NASCAR Now.”

But ESPN lost its rights to televise Cup races after the 2014 season. Instead of parting ways with Smith, ESPN moved him to a new role. He began covering a variety of sports for “SportsCenter,” enabling him to interview the likes of Michael Jordan and Alabama football coach Nick Saban.

“I realize very readily the blessing that I have now. I have so much diversity in my career, which is invigorating,” he said. “I played football, basketball and baseball at Giles High School. I grew up idolizing some of these people. Getting to meet them, whether that’s Saban or Michael Jordan, … it’s just killer.”

Smith covered just three NASCAR races for “SportsCenter” in 2017, reporting on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s final two races at Daytona and his final NASCAR race.

“I still have great passion for it,” Smith said of NASCAR. “I still watch it very closely.”

Smith’s monthly interview show will return to ESPN2 in February. “Marty Smith’s America,” which debuted last summer, has given him the chance to profile football, basketball and soccer players. He has gone fishing with Paul George, talked about race with Anthony Davis and has interviewed Elena Delle Donne about her sister, who has cerebral palsy.

“It’s given us this opportunity to open up these athletes and make them vulnerable,” Smith said. “Paul George, his relationship with father is borne from fishing.”

Smith covered Alabama’s Sugar Bowl win over Clemson in a CFP semifinal at the Superdome on Monday night. Saban told him that it ranked with Alabama’s national championship win over LSU as the most dominant defensive performance ever by one of his teams.

“I’ll never get used to the fact that this is what my job is,” Smith said. “The other day I’m out there with my producer on the playing field at the Superdome running routes between live shots — little Marty.”

Smith has spent a lot of time with Saban in recent years.

“He has an unyielding work ethic, unlike anybody I’ve ever seen other than my grandmother, Eunice Smith, who worked on our family farm until she was 93,” Smith said.

Saban’s relationships with his old high school friends in West Virginia inspired Smith to call five of his old Giles High pals Monday from the Superdome.

“I’m still very close to a lot of my buddies in Giles, but there were a couple who I felt I needed to call to say hello,” Smith said.

Smith lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his wife and three children. But he remains proud of his New River Valley roots.

“I had these crazy, grandiose dreams that ‘I’m going to get out and I’m going to go do amazing things,’” Smith said. “As I’ve been blessed enough to do that, I find myself desperately just wanting to get back.”