Tony Caridi has become one of the most recognizable names in West Virginia broadcasting, his voice providing the soundtrack to some of the greatest moments in Mountaineer sports history.
Caridi has been regularly describing West Virginia University football and men’s basketball action on the radio network since 1996, but his work with WVU dates back to 1984 when he first came to Morgantown to do afternoon news for WAJR-AM.
Two years later, when MetroNews was created, Caridi was promoted to sports director and took over as host of the popular Statewide Sportsline, which still exists today.
Caridi’s first big role with Mountaineer athletics came in 1987 when he teamed with the late Tom Mees to do MSN football telecasts, which aired on tape-delayed basis. That eventually led to live television work for West Virginia University basketball games and then to the Atlantic 10 Television Network and ESPN.
In the meantime, Caridi was also hired by Westwood One Radio Network as an announcer on its college football’s game of the week broadcasts.
In 1996, Caridi was hired by MSN to replace longtime “Voice of the Mountaineers” Jack Fleming when Fleming’s health began to decline, and he has since been behind the microphone to describe some of the biggest football victories in school history, including wins over Georgia in the 2006 Sugar Bowl, Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl and Clemson in the 2012 Orange Bowl.
His many great basketball calls include unforgettable victories over Kentucky in the NCAA East Regional finals in 2010 and a double-overtime win over No. 2-seeded Wake Forest in the 2005 NCAA Tournament second round in Cleveland, Ohio.
During the 2005 football season, Caridi coined his popular catch phrase “It’s a great night to be a Mountaineer, wherever you may be!” in WVU’s iconic triple-overtime victory over Louisville.
Caridi’s supreme dedication to West Virginia University athletics was demonstrated on Dec. 28, 2002, when he broadcast games on the same day in Eastern and Pacific time zones.
Caridi was on site in Charlotte, North Carolina, to call West Virginia’s Continental Tire Bowl game against Virginia in the afternoon before taking a commercial flight from Charlotte to Atlanta to Las Vegas to call West Virginia’s basketball game at UNLV later that evening.
There have been other instances since then when Caridi has somehow managed to be in two different places in the same day to call football and men’s basketball games.
Tony's current work with the network also includes serving as host of the Neal Brown and Bob Huggins radio shows for Mountaineer Sports Properties.
In 2002, the Syracuse graduate became a founding member of Pikewood Creative, now known as WVRC Video, an Emmy-award-winning video production company based in Morgantown, and he continues to serve as its director of business development.
The multiple West Virginia Broadcaster of the Year honoree has also branched out into publishing with a popular children’s book, “Where, Oh Where, Oh Where Could We Go? Traveling West Virginia High and Low,” which he was inspired to write after volunteering in Monongalia County’s Read Aloud program.
In 2023, Caridi was inducted into the WAER Hall of Fame.
The Lockport, New York, native and his wife, Joan, have three sons – Michael, Andrew and Matthew, and one grandson, Luca.
