birth_place headercolor nationality name birth_date article_title birth_name occupation
los angeles , california , u.s. lightsteelblue american paul sunderland 29 march 1952 paul sunderland
 paul benedict sunderland sportscaster
paul sunderland

paul benedict sunderland -lrb- born march 29 , 1952 -rrb- is an american sportscaster based in los angeles , california .
over his broadcast career , sunderland has covered almost every major sport played in southern california .
he has been a studio host for the local affiliate of fox sports net , was the analyst for professional beach volleyball on both fsn and nbc , and has called olympic sports and the nba for nbc .
however , his most famous assignment was calling the los angeles lakers telecasts on fsn .
in january 2002 , he took over as play-by-play announcer when chick hearn took a leave of absence due to a heart procedure .
hearn had called 3,338 consecutive laker games , including playoffs .
sunderland called 17 games until hearn returned .
when hearn died in august 2002 , sunderland returned to the lakers , this time for good , paired with stu lantz .
in the 2002-03 season , the team retained the simulcasts that began under hearn 's tenure .
the following year , the lakers split the broadcasts and sunderland and lantz called games only for television -lrb- fsn and kcal-tv -rrb- .
in the summer of 2005 , sunderland was released by the lakers and replaced by joel meyers .
sunderland continued to do the `` southern california sports report '' , but fsn west cancelled the show at the end of 2005 .
he called college basketball games for fox sports net until 2012 when he joined the pac-12 network as their college basketball announcer .
sunderland served as the play-by-play announcer for nbc sports coverage of indoor volleyball at the 2008 and 2012 summer olympics .
sunderland was a member of the 1984 united states olympic volleyball team that won the gold medal at the los angeles olympics .
among his teammates were eventual broadcast partner chris marlowe and volleyball legends karch kiraly and steve timmons .
he has also covered various events for universal sports , including track and field 's diamond league .
