National Football Foundation

One of the most trusted and respected figures in all of broadcast journalism, Tom Brokaw made his way from a small town in South Dakota to become the only person to anchor all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press.
As a student at Yankton Senior High School, Brokaw played quarterback for the school's football team. Having a great respect for the game, he would later mention the sport numerous times in his best-selling book The Greatest Generation. After graduating from the University of South Dakota, Brokaw began his journalism career in 1962 at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska. Following stints in Atlanta and Los Angeles, Brokaw was hired by NBC News in 1966 and from 1976-1981 he anchored NBC News' Today program.

In 1982, Brokaw began co-anchoring NBC Nightly News. Just a year later, he became the sole anchor of the show and also served as the program's managing editor until his retirement in 2004. Brokaw was regarded as the most popular news personality in the United States after Nightly News moved into first place in the Nielsen ratings in 1996 and held onto the spot for the remainder of Brokaw's tenure on the program, placing him ahead of ABC's Peter Jennings and World News Tonight and CBS's Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News.

Boasting an impressive list of "firsts," Brokaw landed the first exclusive U.S. one-on-one interview with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, earning him an Alfred I. duPont Award. Brokaw was the first and only anchor to report from the scene the night the Berlin Wall fell, and he was the first American anchor to travel to Tibet to report on human-rights abuses, conducting an interview with the Dalai Lama. Brokaw also has interviewed every president since Lyndon B. Johnson and has covered every presidential election since 1968. Brokaw was NBC's White House correspondent during the national trauma of Watergate (1973-1976).

Currently serving as a special correspondent for NBC News, Brokaw reports and produces long-form documentaries and provides expertise during election coverage and breaking news events for the network. He has won a dozen Emmys, two Peabody and two duPont awards for his journalistic achievements. He is also an accomplished author with five best-selling books to his name. He and his wife Meredith have three daughters.