Colin Murray Cowherd is a sports radio host who was born on January 6, 1964, in Bay Center, Washington, USA and grew up in Grayland, Washington. He has a Bachelor’s degree in radio-television from Eastern Washington University. Fiscally conservative and socially liberal is how he describes himself. His parents have a history of marriages and divorces. His father, Charles, has a count of five marriages and his mother, Patricia, went through three divorces. He describes his childhood as dark and idyllic. Cowherd had a lonely childhood and he was not close to his older sister Marlene. His parents divorced when he was very young.
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Career
In 1996, he moved to Tampa, Florida. There he taught trigonometry at a local high school for two years, while working as a sports anchor for KGW-TV.
Cowherd began his radio host career as the play-by-play voice for Pacific Coast League’s Las Vegas Stars. His hosting style gained him good reviews and success. He became a sports director at KVBC-TV in Las Vegas, Nevada... He is best known as the host of the popular syndicated show The Herd with Colin Cowherd on ESPNU and ESPN Radio. It features commentary on sports news, interviews with sports persons and high profile analysts. He also co-hosted the Sports Nation, a radio show on ESPN2. In 2013, he became ESPN Sunday morning pro and college football talk show host. The show is called Colin’s New Football Show. Majority of sports commentaries oscillated around the National Football League as well as the college football. He also made sterling contributions to the National Basketball Association commentaries.
In 2015, he made a decision to leave ESPN following the expiry of his contract. Later the same year, he announced his plan to join Fox Sports. This new four-year contract included having his radio shows aired on the Fox Sports network. He moved his The Herd program to Premiere Networks and Fox Sports Radio. For the television shows, he got a prominent spot at Fox Sports 1, where he was a co-host with Kristie Leahy - a newswoman. Additionally, he was to make other media contributions, the most prominent being on the Fox NFL Kickoff. He is also co-hosting, with Jason Whitlock, All Takes Matter, an hour-long sports interviews and commentary show.
Criticism
There are numerous controversies surrounding his style of working and he has faced plenty of criticism too. Cowherd is not afraid to speak his mind. During his final days at the ESPN, he made controversial comments on the Dominican baseball team members. The remarks dwelt on the lowly education achievements of the players. This remark was met with condemnations from several Dominican players as well as the Major League Baseball Players Association.
The MLBPA further reported reviewing their associations with the ESPN and Fox network with a view of terminating them, due to their perceived noncommittal over Cowherd's slighting remarks. Instead of backing down, Cowherd gathered statistics to support his allegations. He provided data from various sources related to the state of education in the Dominican Republic. He later tried to rephrase his remarks and the apologized. However, his apology was taken with a pinch of salt.
Another controversial remark made by Cowherd was in regards to reasons for the murder of Sean Taylor. He insinuated that his death was as a result of past dealings which were not quite clean. Investigations into the murder established that his death was caused by a botched burglary attempt. The robbers (unaware of the fact that the homeowner was within), panicked at shot him. Despite this revelation, de did not retract his previous remarks nor offered an apology.
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In April 2007, while working for ESPN, he made another critical and controversial decision during the course of his work. He directed his fans to crowd the sports blog page The Big Lead, resulting in an overload. Since the site was not capable of hosting the massive influx of visitors - who logged in simultaneously. It crashed and was offline for about 96 hours. Even with the negative backlash from the ESPN's management, no action was taken against Cowhead, since there was policy to discipline such behaviors then. However, it led to the enactment of a non-tolerance of such action in its wake.
Despite his stunts and abrasive comments, Cowherd, nonetheless, still commanded a large fan following. He is very enthusiastic about his work and is always bright and smiling on his shows.
Private Life
Cowherd does not disclose much of his personal life to the media. Cowherd married Kimberly Ann Vadala in 1996 and they have two children. After 11 years of being together, they divorced in 2007. The reason for the divorce is not known. Cowherd has a very busy life. Colin and Kim are co-parenting their children and he gets to see them whenever he wants to. It is assumed the separation was amicable and peaceful. Since he has not given reasons for his divorce, there were rumors about why his first marriage failed.
There were also rumors suggesting that he had a secret love affair. Cowherd, of course, refuted all the rumors as untrue. In 2010, he married his close friend, Amy. Though he is a sports host who has covered several football games, he has stated that he will not compel his children to become football players. Incidentally, apart from his two biological children, he has four stepchildren. Both his ex-wife and his present wife do not comment on any of their personal life and neither do they allow the media to intrude.
Just when he was leaving ESPN Sports for Fox Network, he was reported to have bought a palatial $3.1 million, 3,700 square foot home on looking the Manhattan Beach. This was after selling his 6,100 square foot home at West Hartford, Connecticut. He also owns another property in Naples, Florida.
Awards and Books
Besides sports commenting and anchoring, he also has another feather in his cap. Cowherd was awarded Sports Illustrated honor of Radio Personality of the Year in 2005. He was also named the Nevada Sportscaster of the Year for five consecutive years.
Cowherd is a successful and popular sports host with a flair for writing. In 2013, he released his first book You Herd Me! I’ll Say It If Nobody Else Will. Subsequently, he wrote another book, Raw: My 100% Grade-A, Unfiltered, Inside Look at Sports.
Last Modified: Apr 8, 2020
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