Working Man
Just looking at Tom Rinaldi’s broadcast schedule the past week will put you in the hospital with exhaustion
You know Tom Rinaldi. If not his face, at the very least his voice. His croon is legendary. His capacity for feelings bottomless. In fact, we’re willing to bet that at some point—be it at Augusta National or while prowling an NFL sideline for a story—Rinaldi has made you cry. He’s that guy.
What you may not know, however, is that beneath that tender facade lies one the grittiest grinders in all of sports broadcasting. Don’t believe us? Just check out Rinaldi’s travel itinerary over the last week for Fox.
Bro. Chill. In between stints working a record-breaking NFL game on Thanksgiving Day and a record-breaking Big Ten showdown on Saturday, Rinaldi whiled away the hours in Doha covering a little something called the World Cup. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
Making things even more mind-boggling is the fact that Rinaldi popped up again in Qatar on Tuesday for the USMNT’s decisive Group B finale against Iran. That’s three separate flights to Qatar in seven days’ time, the last of which clocked in at a cool 15 hours and 40 minutes from LAX. There isn’t enough Red Bull on the planet to fuel a run like that, and that's before we even consider the hazards posed to the human vocal cords by COVID, the flu, and the common cold.
That said, if Rinaldi’s various human interest stories have taught us anything, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
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