Broadcaster Jack Whitaker dies at 95

Jack Whitaker, the Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster who counted horse racing as one of his most abiding passions, died Sunday at the age of 95 at his home in Devon, Pa., of natural causes, according to CBS Sports, which had employed Whitaker for more than 20 years.

Although Whitaker covered a wide variety of sports during his lengthy career, his favorites, according to associates, were unquestionably golf and racing. His career at CBS included coverage of Secretariat’s record-setting victory in the Belmont Stakes, which he called the most dominant performance by an athlete that he had ever seen, plus the two other Triple Crown winners of the 1970s, Affirmed and Seattle Slew.

Whitaker later moved on to ABC, where he would again cover racing as part of his responsibilities. In the early 2000s, he worked on racing broadcasts at ESPN, having been “coerced out of retirement by his love of horse racing,” in the words of racing broadcaster Randy Moss, who remained a friend of Whitaker’s throughout his life.

“Horse racing and golf were his two big loves,” Moss said. “To the day he died, if anyone asked him who was the greatest athlete he ever had the pleasure to cover, the answer was always the same – Secretariat.”

Moss said that he met with Whitaker regularly for dinner in the Philadelphia area, and that the conversation inevitably turned to horse racing, even if his guests were more intent on hearing Whitaker talk about the vast range of his experiences.

“He never wanted to talk about himself,” Moss said. “He always wanted to hear about you, about what was going on with your life. So you had to pry these stories out of him. But he would eventually get around to it, and it would surprise me every time how closely he kept up with racing, well into his 90s.”

Whitaker was born in Philadelphia, where he would get started in his broadcasting career after serving in World War II and being wounded twice. His first jobs came at small radio stations, but he soon gravitated to television. After his announcing career matured, he became most well known and admired for his essay work on broadcasts.

Whitaker was awarded the 1979 Emmy Award for Outstanding Host or Commentator, and received the 1990 Emmy for Outstanding Writing. He was given the Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 2001.

Moss said that Whitaker called him prior to every Kentucky Derby, asking for his analysis and his picks. And Whitaker took enormous pleasure in seeing American Pharoah end the sport’s Triple Crown drought in 2015, Moss said.

“He had covered all three in the 1970s, and he was just so excited [prior to the 2015 Belmont Stakes] to think that he would see another Triple Crown winner in his lifetime,” Moss said. “He was an absolutely wonderful, classy gentleman, and everyone who worked with him felt the same way.”