{"id":85115,"date":"2026-02-06T19:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/nc-state-legend-terry-gannon-to-host-opening-ceremony-wral-com\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T19:46:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:46:04","slug":"nc-state-legend-terry-gannon-to-host-opening-ceremony-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubirataonline.com.br\/en\/nc-state-legend-terry-gannon-to-host-opening-ceremony-wral-com\/","title":{"rendered":"NC State legend Terry Gannon to host Opening Ceremony :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Opening Ceremony of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics is set for Friday. On Wednesday, NBC Universal confirmed who its on-air hosts for the opening ceremony would be.<\/p>\n

Mary Carrillo will join Terry Gannon as the hosts for Friday\u2019s event. The news came after TODAY co-anchor Savannah Guthrie announced she would stay home as authorities continue searching for her mother, who was abducted from her Arizona home over the weekend<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Gannon may be a known face to many Olympic viewers on Friday, he was already making a name for himself in the Triangle before switching to broadcasting.<\/p>\n

Who is Terry Gannon?<\/h2>\n

Terry Gannon is a former basketball player and sports broadcaster for NBC\u2019s Olympic coverage for both the Summer and Winter Games. <\/p>\n

Gannon went to North Carolina State University, where he played basketball for the Wolfpack from 1981 to 1985. He was a member of the 1983 Wolfpack, known as the Cardiac Pack and one of the most improbable Cinderella teams<\/a> in the history of the NCAA Tournament, defeating the Houston Cougars, 54-52, to win the national championship.<\/p>\n

Gannon was on the floor for Lorenzo Charles’ game-winning slam dunk<\/a> to beat Houston as time expired. Gannon was one of the best three-point shooters in the nation that season and still holds the NC State record for career free throw percentage.<\/p>\n

The team and its players are widely regarded as the most famous in the school\u2019s history<\/a>, and were the subject of an ESPN documentary, \u201cSurvive and Advance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gannon worked as a graduate assistant for head coach Jim Valvano after he graduated and briefly played professionally in Europe.<\/p>\n

How did Terry Gannon become a broadcaster?<\/h2>\n

Gannon made the switch to broadcasting on the advice of Valvano, who himself turned to broadcasting after his coaching career was over.<\/p>\n

Since then, Gannon has been praised as a sportscaster with one of the widest ranges of game knowledge.<\/p>\n

Gannon started with local sportscasts around North Carolina before joining ABC in 1991 and was asked to cover a sport nearly as far away from basketball as you could imagine: Figure skating. <\/p>\n

“I got a call Monday morning from the executive producer at ABC, and [he] said, ‘We need you to go to Tokyo next week,'” Gannon told WRAL in 2022. “Because I played for a guy able to take on every challenge and other aspects of life, I was able to say yes and quickly figure out how to do it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

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