[2] Tompkins was hired as sports director at the San Francisco CBS television affiliate, KPIX-TV.
Tompkins returned to San Francisco in 1978 and joined then-NBC affiliate KRON-TV as sports director, while continuing to cover Pac-10 basketball for NBC as well as feature stories for its NFL pre-game show.
and when Mike Tyson won the WBC world Heavyweight title with a second-round knockout of Trevor Berbick (And we have a new era in boxing.).
[4] From 1986-88, Tompkins called University of Washington Huskies football games alongside UW legend Don Heinrich on 710 KIRO (AM) radio.
In 1995 Tompkins left ESPN to join Fox Sports as the play-by-play announcer of Sunday Night Fights, and he began traveling through the United States alongside Sean O'Grady and Rich Marotta.
Tompkins continued as the lead play-by—play commentator of FSN's coverage of Pac-12 football with Petros Papadakis and basketball with Dan Belluomini, Marques Johnson, Don MacLean and Ernie Kent through 2011.
In July 2011 it was announced that Tompkins would leave Pac-12 football broadcasts and instead be the new play-by-play man for the WAC Sports Network, going into its second season.
He was hired by the Mountain West Conference to serve as their #1 play-by-play broadcaster for the new MWC regional package on Time Warner Cable SportsNet (started after Mtn folded after spring 2012).