Men's Basketball Southern Conference

Ciuffo Named Sportscaster Of The Year

Charleston, S.C. - Tony Ciuffo, the voice of College of Charleston athletics, has been selected as the 2003 South Carolina Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.

Ciuffo, along with other state winners, national winners and Hall of Fame inductees, will be honored at the 45th Annual Awards Program in Salisbury, N.C., May 1-3, 2004. Rick Nelson of the Charleston Post and Courier staff was selected as the state's Sportswriter of the Year.

Joe Buck and Rick Reilly are the national winners and Joe Garagiola (NBC) and Jerome Holtzman (Chicago Sun Times) are the Hall of Fame inductees.

"I'm humbled to receive such a tremondous honor," said Ciuffo, who's also in his 14th year as the school's assistant athletics director for media relations. "This is a direct reflection of this great institution, and the success of its teams and its outstanding student-athletes."

Ciuffo is in his eighth season as the school's play-by-play voice for men's basketball and baseball. Ciuffo, who has worked live telecasts of Cougar baseball and basketball games on Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast (CSS), spent last fall serving as the play-by-play voice of Charleston Southern University football.

Ciuffo also hosted The Palmetto Pigskin Preview, a weekly 90-minute college football call-in show that aired each Friday evening on ESPN Radio 1340-AM in Charleston. He served as host for the Jay Mills Radio Show (CSU head football coach) and currently hosts the Tom Herrion Radio Show (CofC men's basketball head coach).

Ciuffo, who graduated from Wando High School (Mount Pleasant, S.C.) in 1984, received his associate's degree from Anderson College while a member of the school's baseball team from 1985-86. Ciuffo earned a degree in Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1989 while working in the school's sports information department as an undergraduate assistant.