How Gil Santos and a security guard helped start Mike Gorman’s career

“‘What’s that in the back seat?’ ‘Oh it’s a baseball cap,’” Gorman recalled of his conversation with the security guard, in the “Today Show” interview. “He said, ‘What’s that in front of the baseball cap?’ I said, ‘VP-44, the squad I used to be in Maine.’”

The security guard happened to also be a part of the Navy, helping Gorman out.

“‘I’ve got this guy here, ex-military guy, good guy, and did the same for his country,’” Gorman recalled the security man’s conversation with Santos. “‘Now, he’s trying to get into the business, could you help him out and talk to him for a little while? … You can? Sure, OK.’”

Gorman left enough of an impression that Santos helped him land a job at WNBH, where the former Patriots radio announcer previously worked. He sold ads and did the sports broadcasts there before working at WPRO in Providence and worked as the sports director at WPRI.

Not long after, Gorman began his role as the Celtics’ television play-by-play voice, pairing with Celtics icon Tommy Heinsohn as the partnership was one of the longest-tenured in the history of professional sports. He also broadcasted Big East basketball games for ESPN in the 1980s and lent his voice to NBC for a pair of Summer Olympics broadcasts before being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.

Gorman believes none of that would have happened if it weren’t for the security guard who was willing to put in a good word.

“If that guy hadn’t seen the baseball cap, I never know you — I live a totally different life,” Gorman said.

Gorman has given credit to Santos in the past, too. When Santos passed away in 2018, he shared how he was “forever grateful” for the hour-long meeting he had with the former Patriots radio announcer in 1975.

“I was pretty much at the end of the line trying to get into broadcasting,” Gorman told A. Sherrod Blakely then. “If Gil had been discouraging or said you need to go to broadcasting school or something like that, I would have said, ‘Thanks’ and gone back to being a teacher, which is what I was trained to be in college.

“He opened the door for me,” Gorman added. “If he doesn’t open the door for me, I’m 90 percent sure I would be in some other business, not doing what I’m doing now.”