Chris Berman Reveals How He Got The Nicknames 'Boomer' and 'The Swami'

On today's Pardon My Take... CHRIS BERMAN! The legendary broadcaster joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter IN PERSON for 80 minutes to discuss a plethora of topics. Football, media, broadcasting and more football were some of the talking points in this one, and to be honest, I could be writing an individual blog on each of those. That's how good this interview was. 

But what we are going to focus on today is the origin of the nicknames that Berman typically goes by... "Boomer" and "The Swami." Any AWL knows how much of an impact that Chris Berman has had on PMT. Every single Football Monday show opens up with a spin-off of Boomer's Fastest Two Minutes, so it's only right that we share the story of how the aforementioned broadcasting legend got that nickname. Take a look...

Mr. Commenter: How did you get the name Boomer? 

Chris Berman: OK, that's my first year, late. A man that became a legend at our place, became the head of all the technical named Chuck Pagano [not the football coach], local boy here, Waterbury, Connecticut, became executive VP, just because he worked hard and did his job. He goes, deep voice, too, "You're loud on these highlights, we're going to call you the BOOMER. That came from a coworker, if you will. And it stuck, and you know, we had arguments... Esiason, David Wells, etc. Which was the bigger Boomer? You know, keep me out of it. But so, it came from a coworker who worked the overnight shift with me. And it stuck, you know, like in the early days, maybe even in your world, your first... something really worked, you weren't planning on it. You go with it, and it stuck.

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Mr. Cat: What about The Swam? I love The Swam.

Chris Berman: Well, that was mine. I'm picking games. Well, so now it's 1979, I start October '79, it was football season. It's a sign off the first six months, a good night. Well, maybe not Friday night, maybe not Friday night, that we went neither here nor there. I said, I'm going to pick five games, you know, against the spread. You know, you just said things like, "It'll be closer than expected," you know? I mean, this is 1979, 1980-81, there's all sorts of, "They're going to win much more handily than you'd think." You know, duh. What am I telling you? And I put the score up, always put the score up, and it was never right on, it was always at least a field goal one way or the other. So, I left no doubt as to what I was picking, you know, and then I gave the record with it. 

You know you've made it when you are universally known by an affectionate nickname. But you know you're a legend when you are universally known by MULTIPLE affectionate nicknames. Call him Boomer, call him The Swami, or call him something as simple as Chris Berman, it doesn't matter. This man is one of the greats at what he does and it was really cool to see how well he meshed with Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter. I highly, highly recommend that you all listen to this one in its entirety.