He coined the nickname "The Granddaddy of Them All" for the Rose Bowl Game, taking the moniker from Cheyenne Frontier Days in his native Wyoming.

[2] He enrolled at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where he was a 5'9" (175 cm) starter on the basketball team and played varsity tennis, lettering three years in both sports for the Cowboys.

[3] Gowdy planned to become a fighter pilot, but a ruptured disk in his spine from a previous sports injury cut short his military service in the Army Air Force, leading to a medical discharge in 1943.

[4] In November 1943, recovering from back surgery, Gowdy made his broadcasting debut in Cheyenne calling a "six-man" high school football game from atop a wooden grocery crate in subzero weather, with about 15 people in attendance.

He found he had a knack for broadcasting, and worked at the small KFBC radio station and at the Wyoming Eagle newspaper as a sportswriter (and later sports editor).

In 1947–1948, in addition to calling football and basketball on KOMA, Gowdy was also broadcasting the baseball games of the Texas League Oklahoma City Indians, on station KOCY.

[citation needed] Gowdy called Ted Williams' final at-bat where he hit a home run into the bullpen in right-center field off Jack Fisher of Baltimore.

Besides Christman, who followed him from ABC to NBC, Gowdy's other football broadcast partners were Kyle Rote, Al DeRogatis, Don Meredith, John Brodie, and Merlin Olsen.

His broadcast partners for baseball included Pee Wee Reese, Tony Kubek, Sandy Koufax, and Joe Garagiola.

After the 1975 World Series, he was removed from NBC's baseball telecasts, when sponsor Chrysler insisted on having Joe Garagiola, who was their spokesman in many commercials, be the lead play-by-play voice.

Gowdy returned to the NBC World Series broadcast in 1978 as "Host" with Garagiola handling play-by-play and Kubek and Tom Seaver providing color.

He continued as NBC's lead NFL announcer through the 1978 season, with his final broadcast being Super Bowl XIII between Pittsburgh and Dallas.

[12] After switching networks, Gowdy called NFL games on CBS for two seasons with former Kansas City Chiefs head coach Hank Stram, and also did baseball on radio.

Curt Gowdy was present for some of American sports' storied moments, including Ted Williams' home run in his final at-bat in 1960, Super Bowl I, the AFL's "Heidi" game of 1968, and (after the 1968 pro football season) the third AFL-NFL World Championship game (Super Bowl III) in which Joe Namath and the New York Jets defeated the NFL champion Baltimore Colts.

He also covered Franco Harris' "Immaculate Reception" of 1972, Clarence Davis' miraculous catch in a "sea of hands" from Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler, to defeat the Miami Dolphins in the final seconds of a legendary 1974 AFC playoff game, and Hank Aaron's 715th home run in 1974.

Gowdy endeared himself to long-suffering American Football League fans when it was learned that in an off-air break towards the end of a game, he asked rhetorically: "“I want to see Tex Maule, that —————.”", a reference to the Sports Illustrated writer who for years had denigrated the AFL.

[citation needed] Gowdy was also known for the occasional malapropism, including a consoling comment just after the Red Sox lost the 1975 World Series: "Their future is ahead of them!

In May 2003, a few months shy of his 84th birthday, Gowdy called a Red Sox–Yankees game from Fenway Park, as part of the ESPN Major League Baseball "Living Legends" series.

[14] Gowdy made cameo appearances in the movies The Naked Gun (1988) and Summer Catch (2001), and his voice can be heard in Heaven Can Wait (1978) and BASEketball (1998).

Gowdy, who also did some sportswriting during his early broadcasting days, wrote two books: Cowboy at the Mike (1966), with Al Hirshberg, and Seasons to Remember: The Way It Was in American Sports, 1945–1960 (1993), with John Powers.

The year away from broadcasting the Red Sox in 1957 awakened him to the fact that he might need an alternate way of making a living, leading to his interest in station ownership.

In 1985, he was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame along with his onetime Yankees partner Mel Allen and Chicago legend Jack Brickhouse.

The 11,000 acre (44 km2) Curt Gowdy State Park is halfway between his high school hometown of Cheyenne and his college town of Laramie.

Milward Simpson, director of the Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources Department, describes the 7,400-square foot building, which also includes meeting rooms and a lobby, as a monument to the "fantastic legacy" left by Gowdy.