March 10, 2000
Longtime ABC sports director Chet Forte will posthumously receive the Directors Guild of America’ s Lifetime Achievement in Sports Direction Award, DGA President Jack Shea and Awards Committee Chairperson Howard Storm announced today. The Award will be presented at the 52nd Annual DGA Awards on March 11, 2000, at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Former NBC West Coast President and new ABC Monday Night Football producer Don Ohlmeyer will accept the award on Forte’s behalf.
Forte, an All-American basketball player at Columbia University, joined ABC Sports in 1963, where he worked for twenty-four years. Probably best known for directing Monday Night Football from 1971 through 1986, Forte also directed ABC’s Olympics coverage from 1964 to 1984, over 300 episodes of Wide World of Sports, Monday Night Baseball, Super Bowl XIX, the Major League Baseball World Series and All-Star Game, numerous Triple Crown horse races, the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona 500, NCAA Football and NBA Basketball.
Forte also directed ABC news specials, including Cape Kennedy space shuttle launches, the return of the American hostages from Iran, Ronald Reagan’s Presidential inauguration and Democratic and Republican national conventions.
Forte passed away from a heart attack in 1996 at the age of 60.