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Ever the gentleman, Greg Gumbel reached out to offer a welcoming handshake. Ernie Johnson responded with … a fist bump?
The awkward exchange — one Johnson still describes, a decade later, as “so embarrassing” — lasted maybe two seconds. To Johnson, a TV veteran, it felt like an eternity. And yet if it had to happen, for two seconds or 20, it’s agreed that no one other than Gumbel could have handled it so smoothly.
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For more than a quarter of a century, Gumbel provided calm in the most chaotic stretch of the sports calendar, gently and seamlessly guiding
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