Glenn Harris

Sports talk show host Robert “Glenn” Harris was born on April 24, 1947 in Queens, New York. The son of electrical worker Pleasant Samuel Harris and June Pucket Harris, he grew up in Southeast Washington, D.C. with his brother, Ron. Harris loved sports and in 1958 won the Washington, D.C. City Little League Championship. He attended Birney Elementary School, Turner Elementary School, Garfield Elementary School and Douglass Junior High School. At Anacostia High School, Harris and his friend, Reggie Rucker, were mentored by Dave Brown. Graduating in 1965, Harris played baseball with the Washington Black Sox and briefly attended Miami’s Dade County Junior College. From 1970 to 1974, Harris attended Howard University on a baseball scholarship and graduated with his B.S. degree in physical education and urban education. Under the guidance of Chuck Hinton, Howard won the MEAC Baseball Championship twice during Harris’ playing years.

In the mid-1970s when Harris was public address announcer for Howard University’s athletic teams, he was discovered by black radio entrepreneur, Dewey Hughes. Harris began hosting the popular Let’s Talk Sports on Howard’s WHUR-FM in 1979 and went on to become Sports Director for the station. Harris has hosted Community News and Sports on Channel 4 and provided sports commentary for FOX WTTG-TV. Anchoring the only live nightly sports call-in show in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, NEWSCHANNEL 8’s Sports Talk, Harris earned back-to-back awards for “Best Year-Round Sports Coverage” from Virginia’s Associated Press. His feature “Anacostia at the Crossroads” garnered an award from the National Association of Black Journalists in 1995.

A streetwise, knowledgeable and well-liked authority on local and national sports, Harris participated in Howard University’s 1993 Forum on Black Athletics. In 1995, Harris received the “Glenn Brenner Award” for outstanding contributions to young people in the community at the Regional Emmy Awards. Inducted into Howard University’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995, Harris has also received the Outstanding Washingtonian Award. Washington Mayor Anthony Williams proclaimed June 6, 2003 as Glenn Harris Day.

Harris was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on February 6, 2007.