It Happened!: A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television

by Jim Lampley, Art Chansky

From Jim Lampley, HBO’s ringside face and voice of boxing, comes a first-person, blow-by-blow account of the evolution of sports television chock full of famous names, history-making events, and never-before-told stories from the world of sports.

Jim Lampley’s story is a 50-year travelog of an unlikely career that catalogs the evolution of sports television—from his emergence as the first sideline reporter, through hosting and covering 14 Olympics, to working with all major sports networks.

It Happened! charts Jim’s notable career, with highlights
Becoming the first live reporter on the sideline of a nationally televised college football game Following in the footsteps of Jim McKay as host on ABC’s Wide World of Sports and Howard Cosell as halftime host for ABC’s Monday Night Football Partnering with ABC, CBS, NBC, Turner, and HBO Ascending to host of HBO’s Wimbledon weekday telecasts Reaching “icon” status as the 30-year face and voice of HBO World Championship Boxing
Learn how Jim’s brilliance as an announcer and his revolutionary nature led to innovations in sportscasting, three sports Emmys, and induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Personal anecdotes and hard-earned lessons combine as Jim digs deep and shares celebrity stories from the upper echelons of superstar athletes and Hollywood hotshots, but also offers an introspective look at his personal life and trials. It Happened! tells it all.

Genres: Sports, Biography

272 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2025

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book about the broadcasting side of sports, as Lampley has seemingly done it all. Lots of great anecdotes in this book, as I didn't realize the vast array of sports Lampley covered, along with the significant names he rubbed shoulders with during his life and career.

I came to this as a boxing fan, and in that regard I felt the book should have been so much more. His storytelling is at its best in remembering the Foreman-Moorer upset and the Bowe-Golata riot at MSG. But how can the most prominent boxing broadcaster in history not give recollections of famous moments in HBO's boxing history: the Bowe-Holyfield trilogy (especially the Fan Man incident), the Ward-Gatti trilogy, the Barrera-Morales trilogy, the controversial Chavez-Taylor finish, the return to MSG for Hopkins-Trinidad after 9/11, the marvel of Roy Jones Jr in the '90s, the Pacquiao-Marquez rivalry. If this was a lengthy book, I understand some of these moments getting passed by. The book is rather slim--making these oversights unacceptable.

The non-linear narrative wasn't the best editing choice for this book, and some tighter proofreading would have caught some obvious errors (David Letterman wasn't on CBS in 1992, Will Smith was not slated to star in a new CBS sitcom in the fall of 1992).

Lampley's engaging storytelling about his fascinating career bring this up to three stars, but better editorial decisions would have given this a higher rating.

[Matthew Aujla]

Heartbreaking -- Nothing on the Battle of the Network Stars.

Rogan interview better for the boxing tales.

Jim Lampley is a sports broadcaster and commentator best known for his 30-year run on HBO World Championship Boxing. https://open.spotify.com/episode/6qaw...

[Jason Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 29 of 2025.

4.5 stars

I grew up with Jim Lampley on HBO Boxing, but he has done so much more in sports!
I had the pleasure of attending Jim’s book discussion/Q+A/signing recently, and I’m glad I went!
Jim talked about his relationship with Ali, with George, and Emmanuel Steward.
He also talked about his Tyson-Douglas call, the convo between him and Foreman and the “It Happened” call which became the name of the book, and many other boxing related things!

In this book, Jim tells the story of his life/career, and it is definitely worth reading!

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Lampley had a long and mostly successful career in sports broadcasting, most notably for his work in boxing for HBO. He writes about his life and his ups and downs in both his professional and personal lives in this very good memoir.

Most memoirs and biographies will follow the timeline from childhood to either the present or death. This one does not do that at all, aside from the beginning, when Lampley describes his childhood and early adulthood. I found that the biggest drawback of the book because unless one is a fan of Lampley and followed his career closely, it was hard to determine where in his life or career he was at. It felt like he wanted to jump to the next story or topic that was on his mind, whenever it might have occurred relative to the last one.

But the stories he can tell are so good, especially those from his days of covering “Wide World of Sports” and the Olympics (both Summer and Winter Games). His accounts from his vantage points of Frank Klammer’s exciting downhill skiing gold medal run in 1976 and the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid were two of my favorite stories in the entire book. But the excellent stories are not limited to the Olympics. His account of the George Foreman-Michael Moorer fight and the upset of Mike Tyson by Buster Douglas are also great. Especially the Foreman-Moorer bout where Foreman told Lampley before the fight what he was going to do to his opponent. That was the fight in which Lampley exclaimed his famous line whis is the title of the book, “It happened!”

What makes Lampley’s career even more interesting is the sheer variety of sports he has covered in his career: college and NFL football, Major League Baseball, college basketball, golf, tennis to name just a few as well as boxing. Just about any sport a reader enjoys could be covered in this book.

There is also plenty of material on his personal life, which is not quite as successful, starting with the fact he has been married four times. To his credit, no matter what happened in his relationships with those women or his children, he never criticized them or had anything bad to say about them. When it comes to stories about this part of his life, the best ones involve his daughter Brooke, whom he had with his second wife Joanne.

Overall, I felt this was a very good, entertaining and easy to read memoir even if it jumped around at times and felt like it needed more boxing since that is what Lampley is best known for. Nonetheless, if a reader wants to learn more about this very interesting and versatile broadcaster, it is highly recommended.

I wish to thank Ben Bella Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[Thomas Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Lampley who has had more than fifty years as a network television broadcaster who got his start when the people at ABC sports had the foresight to search for a college age sideline reporter for college football games. Now of course it is so common in most sports. This took place in 1974 so depending on your age and if you were in to sports you may have followed Mr. Lampley's career. He covered college football, pro football, professional golf, major league baseball, many Olympics, Wimbledon, by working with or being assigned to the Wide World of Sports he covered many Eunique sports like the World Lumberjack Championships or the triathlons when they started check out one called The Crawl of Shame that was about Julie Moss. And of course, his long career (31 years) as a ring side announcer for boxing. It is interesting to read that his mother had to be responsible for developing his love of boxing at an early age by making him sit-down and watch a televised boxing match. His mother was also responsible for Jim and his brothers' views of supporting the civil rights movement, equality and to push back against the ugliness of racism in the 1950's and her coming from a family that definitely did not hold the same views. There are many stories about his relationships with fellow broadcasters and sport stars and his own personal relationships that were not as successful as his career. There are many great stories but one that stuck out for me was the fight between Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas that took place at the Tokyo Dome and the crowd was so quiet that you could hear the fighters' shoes on the canvas, definitely not that way here in the United States. There are many great stories in here so pick it up and give it a read.

[Ben Neidl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recommend the audiobook for this because Lampley reads it himself and he has a great voice, of course.

I’m not much of a sports fan but I have been a follower of boxing since the 90s, and Lampley called many of the fights I’ve watched. I picked this up for his insight on some of the iconic boxing bouts he’s covered, which it delivers, but it’s an interesting career memoir beyond that, across-the-board. He has some interesting stories, one of my favorites being his vantage point on the “Miracle on Ice” hockey win in Lake Placid in 1980 (he didn’t call that game from the sidelines, but he was in the building and has an unforgettable story about it). I’d rate this 3.5 if Goodreads understood fractions.

[Gitty Fortgsng · Rating 1 out of 5]

In Jim Lampley’s book, the first edition claimed that during Munich 1972 nine Israeli athletes were kidnapped and “two were murdered.” That grotesquely minimized the truth: all eleven athletes were murdered.

After many complaints and outrage, the second edition appeared. Instead of correcting the record, it compounded the falsehood by claiming the other nine were killed “during an attempted hostage exchange at the airport.” That is a fabrication. There was no exchange. The athletes were hogtied in helicopters and massacred with grenades and machine guns after a failed German rescue.

To move from “two were murdered” to “they died in an exchange,” especially after being called out, is not negligence. It is a blatant antisemitic distortion and a cover-up of the atrocity.

[Kerri Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

​This is a great book for sports (and sports broadcasting) fans in your life, and especially anyone who grew up watching Lampley on the sidelines of assorted sporting and Olympic events [and who would otherwise recognize him as the voice of HBO boxing for 30+ years].

Knowing that Jim himself is a lovely, humble, eloquent human (and a fantastic storyteller) only makes me like this book more. Buy it for your dad!

[Zachary Holguin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read about Lampley's career. As I read it, I heard his voice which was nice. However, I am a boxing fan and I wanted more boxing stories. instead we get a lot of Olympics, Wide World of Sports, and other sports. They were still good stories. If he writes another book geared more toward boxing I will buy it.

[Aaron Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look into the career of one of the best. I would have liked a little more on Lampley’s three decade career calling the biggest fights for HBO, but overall this is an entertaining and quick read.

[Paul Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sports fans will enjoy this book, especially boxing aficionados. His biography gave me an appreciation for how the sportscaster profession requires an entire commitment both at both a personal and professional level.

[Jim Castine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only know lampley from HBO boxing, so this book is an eye opening story into how deep is career actually runs.

that said, I was hoping for more boxing anecdotes when I picked up this book. but that's on me

[Tim Spears · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anticipation is always more enjoyable than the action. Lamps gets that.

[Kevin Vermillion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having seen Lampley in person and a love for boxing (and sports) I felt like I was part of the book.