Mike Tirico Returns to Syracuse as 2026 Commencement Speaker

By Jen Okafor, Staff Reporter

Syracuse University picked a speaker who actually started here. On Thursday April 9, the university announced Mike Tirico as the 2026 commencement speaker. Tirico will address the graduating class at 9:30 a.m. Sunday May 10 inside the JMA Wireless Dome.

Chancellor Kent Syverud framed the pick in the announcement. “Mike is the definition of an Orange success story,” Syverud said. “He began his career right here on campus, and has gone on to become one of the most respected voices in sports broadcasting.”

For Syracuse, this is a homecoming pick. For the roughly 2,400 students across the three Newhouse buildings, it is also a reminder of how the path actually works.

The local road Tirico traveled

Tirico was born December 13, 1966 in Queens and grew up there, graduating from Bayside High School. He enrolled at Syracuse in 1984. On campus he landed the first Robert Costas scholarship at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, a recognition Bob Costas ’74 set up in the mid 1980s for students following the same broadcast path Costas walked from WAER-FM to NBC.

Tirico called his first games on WAER-FM, the Newhouse affiliated student station that launched in 1947 and still broadcasts at 88.1 FM from Newhouse 3. WAER was co founded by Charles Reichblum ’48, the original voice of the Orange. Tirico served as assistant sports director. His later weekly show on the station debuted with Bob Costas and longtime Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim in studio.

While still an undergraduate he took on play by play duties for Syracuse basketball, football, lacrosse, and volleyball on WAER. He also worked at CBS affiliate WTVH-TV in Syracuse starting in 1987, more than a year before he earned his degree. He stayed at WTVH as sports director for four years through 1991. In 1989 the Syracuse Journal named him the top local sportscaster, and he won an Associated Press New York Broadcasters award for “48 Hours with Syracuse University Football,” a documentary about the team’s preparation leading up to a game.

Upon graduating in 1988 Tirico earned a dual degree in broadcast journalism from Newhouse and political science from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. That local anchor run at WTVH is the rung most student broadcasters today skip in their career planning. Tirico has referenced it in past campus visits as the piece that taught him the job.

He joined ESPN in July 1991 as a SportsCenter anchor and stayed 25 years. He called Monday Night Football from 2006 through 2015, a run that opened with analysts Tony Kornheiser and Joe Theismann in the booth, added Ron Jaworski from 2007 through 2011, and paired him with Jon Gruden starting in 2009. In 2012 ESPN slimmed to a two man booth with Tirico and Gruden. Tirico was also the lead golf voice for the ABC and ESPN package from 1997 through 2015, calling the British Open. He covered the NBA on ESPN and ABC, where his 313 regular season and playoff game total is documented by the 506 Sports Archive, along with college football, college basketball, and tennis. In July 2016 he moved to NBC Sports.

At NBC he has been the primetime Olympic host for PyeongChang 2018, Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022, Paris 2024, and Milan Cortina 2026. When Al Michaels agreed to a deal with Amazon on March 23, 2022 to call Thursday Night Football, Tirico slid into the Sunday Night Football play by play chair alongside Cris Collinsworth. In February 2026 he called Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday February 8, where the NFC champion Seattle Seahawks beat the AFC champion New England Patriots 29 to 13. He then took a travel day and opened on location as primetime host in Milan on Tuesday February 10, his fifth Olympics as primetime host and his sixth NBC Olympics assignment overall. He became the first U.S. broadcaster to anchor a Super Bowl and a Winter Olympics in the same year. When the NBA returned to NBC in fall 2025 under an 11 year rights deal carrying up to 100 regular season games, Tirico was named lead play by play voice alongside analysts Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford.

The Newhouse pipeline behind the pick

Tirico is not the first sports voice the Newhouse School has sent to a national stage and will not be the last. Bob Costas ’74, Marv Albert ’63, Dick Stockton ’64, Sean McDonough ’84, Ian Eagle ’90, and Beth Mowins G’90 all came through the same program, alongside Hank Greenwald ’57, Andy Musser ’59, Len Berman ’68 G’70, Dan Hoard ’85, Matt Park ’97, and Dave Pasch ’94. Newhouse has turned out enough national sportscasters that Sports Illustrated once called Syracuse an “incubator” for the trade.

The Newhouse School itself opened in 1964 after a $15 million founding gift from publishing magnate Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. Newhouse 1 was designed by I.M. Pei and remains the center of the complex. Newhouse 2 opened in 1974, and Newhouse 3 opened in 2007. Together the three buildings enroll about 2,000 undergraduates and close to 400 master’s and doctoral students under roughly 200 faculty and staff. Mark J. Lodato has been dean since July 2020 and was reappointed to a second five year term in May 2025.

Tirico has given back to that pipeline directly. He and his wife Deborah Gibaratz Tirico ’89, a four time letter winner in women’s basketball at Syracuse and tri captain of the 1989 team, endowed the Mike Tirico Scholarship and have supported WAER, Syracuse Athletics, and the Maxwell, Newhouse, and Whitman schools. He was elected to the Syracuse University Board of Trustees in 2016 and to vice chair in 2025. His honors from the university include the George Arents Award in 2005, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 1996, the Marty Glickman Award from Newhouse in 2017, and the Dritz Trustee of the Year Award in 2022.

Off campus he remains active with philanthropy tied to his adopted home of Michigan. He and Debbie have lived in Ann Arbor since 1999. Their two children, son Jordan and daughter Cammi, grew up there. Tirico has hosted several “Hot Stove Stories” breakfasts for the Jamie Daniels Foundation in Detroit, a substance use prevention and recovery organization; the 2025 event sold out at more than 220 guests, raised over $100,000, and featured Tigers play by play voices Jason Benetti and Dan Dickerson, with Tirico working through a torn Achilles tendon.

Commencement logistics

The ceremony runs Sunday May 10 at 9:30 a.m. in the JMA Wireless Dome on campus. Graduates should arrive by 8:30 a.m.; gates open at 8 a.m. Commencement rehearsal for graduation candidates only is scheduled for 12 p.m. in the Dome on Saturday. Graduates must register in advance through the Commencement Office to indicate intent to attend and confirm guest counts. Tickets for guests are distributed based on those confirmations. A full livestream runs on the Syracuse University Commencement website for families and friends unable to attend in person.

The venue first opened in September 1980 as the Carrier Dome. In May 2018 the university announced a $118 million renovation that added a fixed roof (completed September 2020) and the building’s first air conditioning system (online by 2021). On May 19, 2022, Syracuse and Syracuse based JMA Wireless closed a 10 year naming rights deal worth at least $3.25 million a year on Sportico’s open market estimate. Current capacities run 42,784 for football, 35,642 for basketball making it the largest on campus basketball arena in the nation, and up to 56,250 for concerts. Commencement typically fills the lower and middle bowls plus the field floor.

The graduate procession begins at the Quad and processes to the Dome. Traffic on Comstock, Ostrom, and Van Buren slows significantly during commencement weekend. University Place closes to through traffic. The Commencement Office recommends arriving 90 minutes before the ceremony. Accessible seating is available on the field floor; graduates or guests needing accessible access should contact the Commencement Office at 315-443-2231.

The context around the pick

Recent Syracuse commencement speakers have leaned heavily toward alumni: Carmelo Anthony in 2025, Florence mayor Dario Nardella in 2024, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala G’70, H’87 in 2023, ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir ’95 in 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul in 2020, Aaron Sorkin in 2012, and Joe Biden as Vice President in 2009. Tirico’s selection extends that pattern and points the spotlight back at a career arc that started in a Syracuse broadcasting room.

Syverud, who became the university’s 12th chancellor in January 2014, disclosed a brain cancer diagnosis on April 15 in a letter to the campus community after seeking care first at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse and then at the University of Michigan, where he is undergoing treatment. He had been named University of Michigan’s 16th president-elect in January 2026 and was scheduled to begin a five year term on July 1, but will not assume that post. At Syracuse he has handed day to day leadership to J. Michael Haynie, the Whitman School executive dean and Air Force veteran who was appointed the University’s 13th chancellor on March 3. Haynie is serving as acting chancellor now and takes the title officially on May 11, the day after commencement. Syverud’s Syracuse tenure effectively ends on commencement day.

The Daily Orange, the independent student paper, published a letter to the editor questioning the pick over past sexual harassment allegations against Tirico from his ESPN days. ESPN suspended him for three months in 1992 following an internal review; multiple misconduct accounts were reported at the time. Tirico has publicly addressed the episode in interviews over the years. The university has not issued a separate response on the letter.

WAER, the station that gave Tirico his first microphone, is still broadcasting from Newhouse 3. Students still pull shifts on Syracuse football and basketball broadcasts. That is the line Syverud’s quote was drawing: Tirico’s 1988 walk across the same Dome floor is one graduating students can actually imagine.

What Dome visitors should plan for

Traffic on Comstock, Ostrom, and Van Buren slows significantly during commencement weekend. University Place closes to through traffic on Sunday morning. The Commencement Office recommends arriving 90 minutes before the ceremony. Accessible seating is available on the field floor; graduates or guests needing accessible access should contact the Commencement Office at 315-443-2231.

For residents on the Hill, Eastside, and along Westcott Street: plan around University Place closures on Sunday morning. For everyone else in Central New York: one of the country’s most recognized sports broadcasters is coming back to Syracuse for a morning.

Sources: Syracuse University News (April 9, 2026 announcement), Newhouse School, Syracuse University Board of Trustees officer biography, NBC Sports press box bio, NBC Sports Milan Cortina commentator announcement, WAER-FM Wall of Fame listing, The Daily Orange, Sportico naming rights coverage, Syracuse University Commencement Office, Jamie Daniels Foundation event recap, Wikipedia entries on Mike Tirico, Super Bowl LX, the JMA Wireless Dome, and Kent Syverud.