PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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By JP Pelzman
Veteran sports broadcaster Brian Custer is in his sixth year as the host of Showtime Championship Boxing, a job he loves doing because it is a sport he loves covering.
But in 2013, the then 42-year-old Custer found himself in the type of fight nobody wants to be involved in, the kind of bout that takes place in examination rooms and on surgical tables.
Custer, who also calls college basketball and football for FOX Sports, was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
“It only takes facing your mortality for you to stop, take account of how you’re living, and say I'm not going to take things for granted anymore,” Custer told PirateCrew.com in an exclusive interview. “And when that doctor looked at me, and told me, you have prostate cancer, and it’s aggressive, and you need surgery immediately,” Custer knew his life was hanging in the balance.
The sportscaster recalled, “I asked can we do something different? I've never had surgery in my life.”
“He said, ‘We can try something else, but more than likely, you’ll be dead in a year or two.’ I was like, oh, my God.”
Custer said, “All I could think about was my three boys, the oldest of whom was 9 or 10 at the time, so that was all I was thinking about.
“So, for me, it was time to fight.”
Which is exactly what Custer, who was then at SportsNet New York, did.
“Luckily the surgery went well,” Custer says, “and my treatments went well. But I'll tell you what, I don’t take anything for granted anymore. Whether it is friends, whether it is relationships, whether it is telling somebody I love you, and whether it is doing anything. I treat every game like it is the NCAA Championship or the Super Bowl.”
He said he brings that same attitude to everything he broadcasts.
“You've got to,” Custer stressed, noting that in an early-season non-conference game, “This may be this program’s first game on network TV, so you treat that game like it’s the championship.”
Custer has become known to Seton Hall fans because of the fact that every time he broadcasts one of the Pirates’ games, they win. Every. Single. Time. At least since December 2016, 26 consecutive victories and counting.
But the indefatigable Custer does much more than be the Pirates’ unofficial talisman. Besides his work for FOX, FoxSports1 and Showtime, he hosts the Last Stand Podcast with Brian Custer, which is available at podcast platforms and in video form on YouTube. It also is carried on several cable networks.
When asked to describe the podcast, Custer explained, “I like to say it’s the unfiltered straight talk from the biggest names in sports and entertainment, and I think if you watch the episodes, it’s a platform where people get on there and they feel comfortable enough to maybe tell me stories about things that maybe they normally wouldn’t tell the media.”
Recent guests have included Sugar Ray Leonard, LL Cool J, Jay Wright, Terrell Owens and Michael Vick.
“They know they feel comfortable with me asking them certain questions,” he added, “and they are willing to open themselves up more on this platform than maybe they would with anyone else, and that’s kind of what we do.”
Custer continued, “And a lot of times, depending on who the person is, I ask them hard questions that I'm sure a number of people wanted to ask them. And the people that come on the show know that, OK, he’s going to ask me some hard questions, and a lot of times, they give me the truth. And I think that’s why people have gravitated to it because, they’re like, wow, I can’t believe that person answered that and was so honest about it.”
Custer says, “The beauty of it is that it became so popular that a number of networks came to us and said let’s make it a television show and that’s what we did, so now we’re on in 180 million homes across the country.”
As for his Showtime boxing role, he said, “It's a sport that I love and I love broadcasting all of our fights.”
Where does Custer think boxing stands in the national sports consciousness these days?
“I think it’s thriving,” he replied. “When the heavyweight division is good, so is the sport of boxing. Now you’ve got real characters--Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua wilder, Tyson Fury. So now, all of a sudden, you’ve got these big guys, big punchers, who have got huge personalities and the heavyweight division is good again and I think the sport is good.
“I think it’s only a matter of time,” Custer added, “before we see boxing right back at the top with the other marquee sports.”
Custer believes part of that resurgence has to do with pressure placed upon boxing by ultimate fighting. In a similar fashion to the way the upstart AFL shook up the staid NFL in the 1960s and eventually forced a merger, Custer says the UFC’s popularity made the sport of boxing take a hard look at how it was marketing itself.
“What the UFC did,” he said, “was come into the marketplace with great fighters with great personalities and a guy (Dana White) who markets it very well. And so it forced the sport of boxing to make some of the best fighters fight each other.
“And that’s what draws people back to the sport,” Custer added. “I think for the longest time, boxing felt like, well, we’re the leader of combat sports and the different networks were just putting on fights that weren’t of interest to the public.”
He continued, “But once you get competition, you’ve got to step your game up, and I think the sport realized that. I can only speak for Showtime, but our motto now is, we have the best fighting the best.
“And kudos to the UFC because it made the sport of boxing say, hey we can’t take anything for granted. We've got to make sure we have exciting fighters, young fighters and more importantly, we have to make sure we have the best fighters fighting each other. And that’s what is going to bring the audience back.”
Custer believes the sport of boxing “got a little complacent and we saw the popularity (of the UFC) explode and it was like, all right, we’ve got to step our game up here and put on some better fights.
“You could see how popular those two sports are when (boxer Floyd) Mayweather and (ultimate fighter Conor) McGregor fought and those two worlds came together. It was the second-most successful pay-per-view in sports history.”
So, what is next for the 49-year-old Custer?
He still is grateful for what he has, and the chance to keep doing what he loves.
“It has refocused me,” he said, “on not taking things for granted and always being the best person I can be, and be the best broadcaster I can be whenever I'm doing an event. Not only do I owe those players that, but also myself because God gave me a second chance.
“I'm one who is never satisfied,” he added, “I never want to be complacent. So I am thankful for where I am and what I've achieved but I know there is so much more that I want to do when it comes to calling the NBA and calling the NFL. There is so much more on my vision board, and more goals that I have to attain so that’s what I'm working toward now.”
He describes himself as “just a guy who’s always had this unquenchable desire to be great. And I'm so thankful, again, that God has given me a second chance, so I'm going at this with all my might. And that is not only to be the best father I can be, the best husband I can be (to his wife Carmen), and more importantly the best person.
“And if people think I'm a great broadcaster,” he says, “that’s cool, too.”
Certainly one fan base would give a thumbs up to that, for sure. Although perhaps for reasons besides his vocal stylings and excellent preparation.
Custer appreciates the love from Pirate Nation, but reiterates, “There are so many good people in this conference. You really just want a good game and the best team to win. That’s what it boils down to.”
The Streak could be put to the test early. Custer and Bill Raftery might work the Baylor-Seton Hall game at the Prudential Center on Nov. 29. Baylor is ranked second in the just-released Associated Press Top 25.
One question remains, however. What if, because of coronavirus concerns, Custer is not able to be on-site for a Seton Hall game and calls the play-the-play from a studio rather than courtside. Can you give us a ruling on that, Brian?
“The way I would answer that,” Custer said, laughing, “is I would say The Streak counts if they win. If they don’t, I'm going to fall back on (the loophole) that I wasn’t actually in the building. That’s what I’m going to fall back on.”
