Bender, Gary

American sportscaster Gary Nedrow Bender, son of Herbert Leo Bender & H. Dolores Nedrow, was born 1 September 1940 in Norton, Kansas. He grew up in Ulysses, Kansas and holds degrees from the University of Wichita (now Wichita State University) and the University of Kansas.

He began his career calling games at Hutchinson Community College and the University of Kansas. He went on to Wisconsin where he called games for the Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Brewers.

He then moved to the national stage calling play-by-play for CBS Sports (1975-1987) football and baseball, then ABC Sports (1987-1992), Phoenix Cardinals (1988-1991), NFL on TNT (1992-1994), and Phoenix Suns (1992-2011) among others. Bender called all of the NCAA Final Four games from 1982 to 1984.

His son Trey is also a sportscaster and granddaughter Landry is an actress [see separate entries].

Gary's Volga German ancestors came to Kansas from the colonies of Kratzke and Ährenfeld.