00:04My entire adult life has been devoted to the Nets franchise. I mean, going back to New Jersey,
00:12right out of college. I mean, I think I've lived longer as a Nets employee than I have
00:17as a non-Nets employee in my life. Thank you very much, Olivier. Welcome to Barclays Center
00:23tonight. Friday night, spring is in the air. You know, it's special because the dream for me was
00:28always to be the voice of a team in the New York tri-state area. I mean, I grew up
00:34in Yonkers
00:35watching the Nets on Channel 9 with Buck Williams and Albert King and Michael Coren and those Nets.
00:42And then the dream for me was to be the voice of a team for decades. And, you know, here
00:46I am
00:47so many years later and it's incredible. We've done a lot of games together. That was a memorable
00:51win for the Nets. Trying to think over our 17 years together while working with Chris has been
00:56the greatest treat of my life. I've never had been around anybody as talented as Chris Carino in
01:03any endeavor. It's amazing how well and how easy he can broadcast and just generally communicate
01:11over the air. It just blows me away the amount of talent he has.
01:18Chris was well on his way to achieving his dream of becoming a broadcaster when at 23,
01:23he was diagnosed with fascio-scapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic condition
01:30that causes his muscles to gradually break down and weaken over time.
01:36I remember asking the doctors, right, what can I do? And there is nothing. There was no treatment.
01:43There's no cure. Even physical therapy, we don't know if it's helping or hurting or whatever it may be.
01:47And my whole attitude was, all right, well, I know this is going to rob me of many things in
01:52my life.
01:53I'm not going to let it rob me of the dreams I have, you know, having a career in sports
01:57broadcasting,
01:58falling in love, having a family. I was determined not to let FSHD take those things from me.
02:03He's the most positive person, like just with everything in life. Like, you know, it's just he,
02:09he's just like anything that happens, any type of problem, we'll fix it. Like, it's okay. You know,
02:15it'll be fine. When you first get diagnosed, it's not overtaking your body the way it is
02:19as you get older. So it was easy for me to sort of bury my head in the sand and
02:24just pretend it
02:24didn't exist. But what you realize is you get to a point where you can't really hide it.
02:29And it's really starting to affect the people around you.
02:32You know, we would have discussions about it and, you know, how to make things better. And I think
02:37that us speaking more about it, I just think that it helped him so much.
02:42That was a key moment where I kind of expressed to Tim that I was, I was worried that I
02:47wasn't
02:47going to be able to continue to do this and travel the way we do. And he just said to
02:51me,
02:52well, I'm not going to let you quit. Like, we'll always figure out a way to do it.
02:59I guess in his mind envisioned one day he would be in the wheelchair. And that was the conversation
03:05that him and Tim had. And Tim said, you know, I'm not going to let you stop.
03:09We often have things that happen to us, but they come and go. It never goes away,
03:15what he deals with. And his perseverance, his mental toughness, day in and day out,
03:21is unbelievable to me. That then changed my perspective on things. It went from,
03:26I was being a burden and people were going to try to force me to just,
03:30hey, you're not going to be able to do this anymore. To where I learned through Tim and even others
03:35with
03:35the organization, that they were working on ways to try and make things easier for me. And that
03:40suddenly gave me a whole new lease on my career. He makes it so you forget that he's going through
03:47everything. Because it's not, he doesn't make it a big deal. And it's a big deal.
03:56I think when you live with a disability, you always have to be finding ways to recreate yourself,
04:02to find new ways of doing things that you did all along. And you have to change and adapt. But
04:08it
04:08really helps to have people in your circle that are behind you and are willing to help you.
04:12I feel calm knowing that when Chris is on the road, if he ever needs assistance,
04:17you know, Tim is just always by his side.
04:19I'm really lucky to work over two decades with one of my best friends. And it's just a pleasure
04:25to come to work every day with Tim. It's just amazing. His attitude and his approach is so
04:31consistent. It's not like phony. Hey, this day is great. It's difficult. But man, he never struggles
04:38during a game. He obviously sets a really high bar for, you know, someone in my situation who wants to
04:42go into his field because everybody has such a respect for him. But it is really cool to just see
04:46the
04:46the family and the warm atmosphere he creates wherever he is.
04:50He's the easiest person to work with because it's very hard to throw him off.
04:57Moments ago here at Barclays Center honoring a legend, Chris Carino, the newest Kurt Gowdy Electronic
05:06Media Award recipient. And he and Tim Capstraw comprise just an incredible radio duo.
05:15One of the best combos in basketball history. No question.
05:18He is a Hall of Famer. He called me and he said,
05:22Honey, I'm going to the Hall of Fame. He was so shocked.
05:27You make your living with words and I had no words. I really truly was overcome with emotion at that
05:33moment. Maybe if I allowed myself to dream about it one day, it would have been many years down the
05:41road.
05:41It was really special because it's oftentimes given to people that maybe are a little older.
05:47So I was just taken back and I don't hug people in general. I'm not a big hugger, but I
05:52had to hug them,
05:53you know. And these kind of things, when they happen to you, it's great because,
05:56you know, getting the Hall of Fame, it's something that I can now share with Tim.
06:03What Chris is doing right now is telling anybody that has any kind of obstacle in their way,
06:10you can fight through it. His is significant and it doesn't go away. And he just keeps on moving forward.
06:17Eventually, when we started the foundation, now we were getting emails from kids affected
06:22with it in all different countries. And he puts his telephone number on our foundation,
06:26so he would just get calls from random people. And they were shocked that they were actually
06:30getting Chris on the phone. And Chris felt like he was just helping so many people.
06:35We found ways to raise money, to give it to researchers and make an impact in trying to help
06:41people that way. And that's probably been the most gratifying thing for me.
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