Win Elliot

Irwin Elliot Shalek (May 7, 1915 – September 17, 1998), better known as Win Elliot, was an American television and radio sportscaster and game show host. He was best known for his long tenures as a play-by-play broadcaster of NHL New York Rangers and NBA New York Knicks games and host of Sports Central USA on the CBS Radio Network.

Win Elliot
Born
Irwin Elliot Shalek

(1915-05-07)May 7, 1915
Chelsea, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedSeptember 17, 1998(1998-09-17) (aged 83)
Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
Occupationsportscaster
Years active1950s–1980s

Elliot was the brother of movie and TV actor Biff Elliot.

Early life and broadcasting career

Elliot was born Irwin Elliot Shalek in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he played goalie for the Wolverines hockey club. In 1946, Elliot began a long run as Rangers radio and television broadcaster, an association that would last 24 years through the 1968-69 season. Later he called boxing matches on the NBC radio network during the 1950s decade.

Elliot was also a game show host in his early career. From 1947 to 1949, he emceed Quick as a Flash,[1] a radio quiz program which featured drama segments with guest actors from radio detective shows. He went on to become a guest host with Beat the Clock and Win with a Winner on television.

In September, 1958, Elliot replaced Jay Jackson as host of the TV version of the formerly popular quiz show Tic-Tac-Dough for the last 13 weeks of its nighttime run. The program was taken off the air amid fallout from the quiz show scandals that had rocked the industry earlier in the year.[2]

Career heyday

The final broadcast of Tic-Tac-Dough on December 29, 1958, also marked the last for Elliot on game shows. Soon he embarked on a full-time sports broadcasting career.

In the mid-1960s, Elliot was the lead voice on "Schaefer Circle of Sports" broadcasts of Rangers and Knicks games, track and field and other events related to Madison Square Garden on WPIX TV and later WOR TV. He also called the 1966 Stanley Cup Finals for NBC, the first televised by an American network.[3]

All the while, Elliot broadcast horse racing events and conducted one of the early call-in sports radio talk shows on WCBS-AM in New York.

Elliot then started anchoring Sports Central USA for CBS Radio, which he continued to do into the early 1980s. He also took part in several of the network's World Series broadcasts in the 1970s and 1980s.[4]

Later years

Elliot died at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut on September 17, 1998, at the age of 83.[5]

Notes
  1. Quick As a Flash
  2. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Tic Tac Dough (1958)--Win Elliot's primetime version opening". YouTube.
  3. http://www.detroitsportsbroadcasters.com/blog/2009/04/21/nhl-hockey-on-national-television-scott-morganroth-blog/
  4. http://www.baseballbroadcasters.com/heritage_wsannouncers.htm
  5. Sandomir, Richard (September 20, 1998). "Win Elliot, Who Broadcast Sports With Flair, Dies at 83". The New York Times.

References
  • Halberstam, David J. (1999). Sports on New York Radio. McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (February 1, 1999). p. 432. ISBN 1-57028-197-1.
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