John Buccigross is an American sportscaster. He has been an anchor for ESPN since 1996.
Biography
Born at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh's northside, he was raised in nearby Indiana, Pennsylvania before moving at 11 to Steubenville, Ohio. A graduate of Steubenville Catholic Central High School, and Heidelberg College, his television duties include the Emmy winning SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight. He formerly served as the co-host of the Emmy nominated NHL 2Night. Before working for ESPN, he worked in Providence, Rhode Island and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Buccigross signed a book deal in the spring of 2006 with Middle Atlantic Press to write the life story of former NHL player and current NHL analyst Keith Jones. The book's title is Jonesy: Put Your Head Down And Skate. The Improbable NHL Career of Keith Jones. The book was released on October 2, 2007. Buccigross described himself in a 2006 column: "I'm 6-foot-4, 192 pounds. Mizuno MP33 irons. Big Run-DMC fan. Love chicken parm. Once played golf with Ray Bourque and tried to intentionally three putt from 30 feet so I could say I shot a 77 playing golf with Ray Bourque. Instead, the slippery downhill putt went in and I shot a 75 not playing golf with Brett Lindros." One of his catch-phrases is "nahmally good", which is a play on "normally good", and he refers to painful experiences by claiming, "Oh, Knights of Columbus that hurts!" Also, on occasion, he uses a Pittsburgh English or Pittsburghese accent, in his announcements of Pittsburgh sports. Another fun catch-phrase of Buccigross is associated with NBA star James Harden, exclaiming, "And a woo woo woo!" every time Harden scores a basket--a tip of the hat to Jeffrey Osborne's 1986 smash hit, "You Should Be Mine." From 2001–2010, Buccigross authored a weekly NHL column for ESPN.com. Since November 30, 2010, however, no new columns have appeared on the website and no explanation has been given by either Buccigross or the network as to why the columns have stopped. Buccigross is a member of the Advisory Board for You Can Play, a campaign dedicated to fighting homophobia in sports. Despite initial reports to the contrary, Buccigross was not included in a mass layoff of on-air ESPN employees that included most of the network's hockey staff in April 2017; his contract was set to expire in the summer of that year and, at the time, it had not been announced whether or not it would be renewed. He remained employed at ESPN as of May 30, 2018. During the 2012 NHL Playoffs, John Buccigross hosted the #Bucciovertimechallenge on Twitter, asking users to guess the player who would score the game-winning goal for every overtime game throughout the course of the playoffs. The game is still active as of 2019.
