Noah Reed’s NBA dreams started in his family’s Indiana living room.
“My grandpa would come over, and it would be him, myself, my dad, my mom and my sister. We would watch Indiana Hoosiers and Indiana Pacers games,” Reed told The Denver Gazette. “We would watch every weekend. Whenever games would be on, he would come over and we would watch games, the five of us.”
Pizza was often part of the family tradition, but Reed was only entertained for so long. Recreating Reggie Miller’s 3-pointers, Jermaine O’Neal’s dunks and Jared Jeffries’s buckets was the more appealing option.
“Being 5 years old, I could sit still for all of about 5 minutes before I had to be up and moving around,” Reed said.
“Whatever the two teams were, I would play that game on my Little Tikes basketball goal in my living room by myself and I would announce the game that was playing. It got to the point where my mom said, ‘You know, you could do that as a job.’ I didn’t really know what she was talking about.”
Mom’s explanation put a plan into motion. Roughly 25 years later, the 31-year-old is set to be Altitude Sports’ next voice of the Nuggets. He succeeds Chris Marlowe.
“Ever since that moment, that was really the only thing that I ever wanted to do, was to be a sports broadcaster and call NBA games,” Reed said.
Noah Reed plays on the Little Tikes hoop in his family’s living room in Indiana. (Photo courtesy of Noah Reed)
***
Reed has since developed the crucial ability to sit through a basketball game, but he still wants to bring that youthful zeal to his new role.
“My style has been — for as long as I’ve done this — very energetic, enthusiastic,” he said.
“I think if you listen to me even for a few minutes call a game, you can tell that I just love what I do. I love my job. I love telling stories. I love broadcasting games.”
The start of his broadcasting career came via a radio class during his freshman year at Huntington (Ind.) North High School. His first assignment was deejaying for one class period, roughly 45 minutes. Being a member of the Vikings’ hoops team prevented him from calling basketball games, but he got to broadcast some baseball and softball games before he graduated and continued his studies at Ball State University.
After college graduation, he spent a summer with the Peoria Chiefs, the single-A baseball affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, before his first full-time job took him to BEK Sports Network in North Dakota. For five years, he called 100 games per year, ranging from small-town high school sports to North Dakota State athletics.
Those reps gave him the confidence to take a chance. He intended to return to Indiana without a job. The plan was to freelance for any university that would get him a shot within a 4- or 5-hour drive from Indianapolis. That didn’t last long.
“Two days after that is when I got the call from ESPN that they had assigned me to my first game. I got incredibly fortunate in that sense,” Reed said.
“At that point, though, it was only one game. They gave me one game, and then it was a ‘Let’s see from there.’ I end up doing 15 games for ESPN that first year as a freelancer.”
Reed earned a full-time gig at the “worldwide leader in sports” the next summer. After a couple of years at ESPN, it was off to Fox and NBC where he continued to broadcast NCAA athletics.
After a year of growth and positive reviews doing college basketball and football on national broadcasts, he was content enough to tell his agent he wouldn’t just take any job on an NBA broadcast. Then, word spread that Altitude Sports would be shaking up its broadcast crew.
The potential to call games for a team that’s planning on contending for another championship and watching an all-time great in Nikola Jokic changed Reed’s tune.
“So many people just had glowing remarks about Altitude and the way they treat their people, how they operate and the product they put forth,” Reed said.
“There was just one thing after another that made so much sense for me, and I told my agent pretty early on, ‘I want to go all-in on the Nuggets job.’ I’m fortunate that it worked out the way it did.”
Noah Reed calls a game during his time at Ball State University. (Photo courtesy of Noah Reed)
***
Denver is largely new territory for the next voice of the Nuggets.
There have been a couple of short visits to town, but the Mile High City has been home for fewer than two weeks. Reed, a longtime appreciator of the outdoors, spent his Labor Day acclimating to the Colorado way of life.
“I ate breakfast at my house, drove 40 minutes to Mt. Falcon, went on a 4.5-mile hike, drove 40 minutes back home,” Reed said. “I was home at 1:30, eating lunch at my house again. I’m excited for stuff like that.”
The hike was one of roughly 10 treks Katy Winge suggested to her new broadcast partner. Winge is Altitude’s new color analyst, and the duo will be joined by Jason Richardson for select broadcasts.
“She’s been great,” Reed said. “We’ve had some very early discussions about the style and kind of brainstorming some ideas of what we want the broadcast to look and sound like. She’s been great on that front. I think we’re going to bring a lot of energy and excitement to it.”
The dream has become reality. The Little Tikes hoop is no more, but Reed is still fired up to be talking basketball.
“Being the voice of an NBA team has been the dream for me as long as I can remember. I was about 5 years old when I decided I wanted to be a sports broadcaster,” Reed said.
“Everything that I have done from choosing which college to go to, to jobs after college and which opportunities I decided to take and which I didn’t. Everything I did was with the mindset and the goal and the plan of this day eventually happening for me, becoming the voice of an NBA team.”