When he was just a young boy, Tom Skinner was already showing a passion for sports broadcasting.
Among his earliest calls was belting out “And down the stretch they come!” to an imaginary horse race.
As he grew, Skinner’s voice spread to other sports, then non-sports.
“It could be a soap opera,” said sister Sue Randall. “Or Mom could be making a pot roast and he would do playby-play and drive her nuts.” It was all youthful fantasy, until one day at Western Michigan University, where fate played a hand.
While watching a football game at his fraternity, Skinner’s play-by-play caught the attention of someone from the student broadcasting program, who asked if he could do that on the air.
And Skinner’s fantasy became his life’s work.
“He got a taste of broadcasting and ran with it,” said brother John Skinner. “He got a poli sci degree from Western but never really used it.”
Instead, Tom Skinner spent the next four decades working the Flint sports scene in a variety of capacities.
For 27 of those years, he did play-by-play of high school sports, Flint Generals hockey, Auto City Speedway races and other area sports — taping the events and postgame interviews for later broadcast on Comcast Cable. He worked the Buick Open every year.
When he wasn’t broadcasting, he was serving as PA announcer at Broome Park baseball, Whaley Park softball and Mott College basketball games. He was on the board of directors of the Greater Flint Baseball-Softball Association and was a supervisor for the Flint City Baseball League.
With a soft spot in his heart for youngsters, he worked with the Elmer Knopf Learning Center in Flint, spent time with special-needs kids he called friends, and led the Montrose High School student broadcasting program to unparalleled success for 12 years.
For all that and more, Skinner, who died in October 2021 at age 63, has earned the Distinguished Service Award from the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
“He was so generous with his time,” said Randall. “He didn’t always get paid to do all that, but I’m sure he would have been doing it anyway.”
Tom Skinner was a standout athlete in his own right, playing football, basketball and baseball at Clio High School. As a middle linebacker, he had almost 200 tackles his senior year, 30 against Powers Catholic. As a switch-hitter, he had triples from each side of the plate in one game. His football prowess earned him a scholarship to Ferris State, but a knee injury in his freshman year ended his football career.
With his playing days over, sports broadcasting became a natural alternative.
“He had that funny gravelly voice, but his stuff was always first-class,” said John Dashner, a football referee who found himself on Skinner’s “Comcast Game of the Week” several times. “Parents and athletes watched and taped those events, which never would have been captured if it weren’t for Tom’s efforts.
“And it wasn’t always Powers and Grand Blanc. The first one of mine was Bentley and Hamady. He moved it around so more parents could get a view of their kids’ games on TV.”
“Tommy really got that thing going,” said Chris “Rooster” Daly, Skinner’s cousin and lifelong buddy. “Kids would walk into school on Monday flying high because they were on TV the night before.”
Skinner soon expanded into bigger events, including the 1996 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills.
“He got an interview with Jack Nicklaus,” said John Skinner, who served as his key grip. “Tom’s holding a Comcast microphone, not CBS or NBC, but Jack was as classy as ever. He didn’t blow him off but gave him engaging answers.
“Tom got those big opportunities here and there, but then the next week he could be interviewing a high school student who was thrilled to death to be on the ‘Game of the Week.’ That was kind of neat.”
On a shoestring budget, Skinner covered a Super Bowl in San Diego. Instead of an expensive hotel stay, he rented an RV for the week and parked it in the stadium lot, with all the other TV trucks.
In Lakeland, Fla., he grew close to Tigers broadcasters Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey.
Then there was the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where Skinner and “Rooster” had the time of their lives. Fudging press passes, they got into the interview room after the U.S. men’s volleyball team won the gold medal.
“We asked at least half the questions,” said Daly, who came from a volleyball family, officiated high school matches and knew intricacies of the sport that real reporters did not. “The next day the answers were in newspapers around the world.
