Rino Tommasi, a true monument of Italian sports journalism, passed away on January 8. The great Rino, born 90 years ago in Verona, was for decades the most famous voice and television face of boxing and tennis matches.

He was a living encyclopedia, in the days when the Internet and Wikipedia did not exist he could recount by heart anecdotes, data, and statistics of every boxer who stepped into the ring or tennis player who entered the field.

Rino was also an expert on American football, on the NBA of the golden years of the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, on baseball and ice hockey from the period of the great Wayne Gretzky. When he took the microphone in hand, he was able to recount every detail of a sporting challenge and the champions who faced it, going into technical detail and seeing those nuances that few people could grasp.

And then he would invent “neologisms” that within hours became words known to all sports fans who also used them to define episodes of everyday life. It was Tommasi who coined the tennis terms in Italian language veronica, palla calante, volèe perdente, diritto anomalo, ricamo e ricamino, all terms that denoted a shot that until then had no precise name.

Together with another great commentator, Gianni Clerici, considered worldwide to be among the most phenomenal tennis journalists, so much so that he wrote an encyclopedia on the subject covering 500 years of tennis history, for three decades he commented on the most legendary tennis matches. Telecasts that even today are considered masterpieces of dialectics and compared almost to works of art because of the richness of the language used.

Tommasi, was so famous in the international tennis world that he was twice elected the ATP's “Tennis Writer of the Year,” voted by the likes of Sampras, Agassi, Edberg, Becker, and Lendl.

But it is also in boxing that he has become a world icon. Since the late 1950s, he began organizing boxing matches in Rome and Milan, becoming Italy's biggest promoter. In the 1970s, he stopped organizing fights and began commenting on television on major fights around the world. He was a real boxing expert, so much so that in 1986, in New York, the famous promoter Bill Cayton showed him pictures of an unknown heavyweight. It only took him a few minutes to buy the television rights to all the fights that boxer would do in the future: that boxer was Mike Tyson.

Tommasi, like Clerici, was part of that small group of Italian sports commentators who became real stars. The first to become so famous as to sign autographs on the streets was Nicolò Carosio, the first commentator of Italian soccer, a true pioneer of sports journalism because he invented the profession of radio commentator first and of commentator later. Even today, Italians listen again on the web to his first commentary of the Italian national soccer team, the Italy-Czechoslovakia match broadcast on December 13, 1953, when television had just begun broadcasting in Italy. Carosio was able to speak for two hours without ever repeating the same words, enchanting the television audience with the beauty of his language that was almost poetic.

But before the arrival of television, another Italian journalist became so famous that he was compared to a movie star. It was Mario Ferretti, who in 1949 almost by chance was called to comment on the Giro d'Italia bicycle race, at that time the most famous and important Italian sporting event. And in that edition of the stage race so beloved by all Italians, there was one of the greatest feats in the history of cycling: the epic Cuneo-Pinerolo stage, in which the “champion” Fausto Coppi climbed in solitude the mountains of La Maddalena, Vars, Izoard, Montgenèvre and Sestriere, arriving in Pinerolo with almost twelve minutes' lead over the other great champion Gino Bartali. On that day, Mario Ferretti entered history, exclaiming at the opening of the radio link a phrase that became so famous that all Italians still know it today: “One man alone is in command, his jersey is blue-white, his name is Fausto Coppi.”

Other sports journalists have also entered the list of “immortal” commentators. Paolo Rosi, a Roman who in his youth played rugby with the Italian national team, and for forty years was the most famous and knowledgeable voice of Italian athletics, rugby, and soccer.

Rosi was a true gentleman of commentary, as was Bruno Pizzul, for many years a commentator for the national soccer team who had a voice as deep as anyone had ever heard on television. And again Nando Martellini, another soccer commentator who in 1982, in the final of the World Championship won by Italy 3-1 over Germany, shouted at the end of the match a phrase “World champions, world champions, world champions,” which became a hit among soccer fans.

But not only in soccer have there been, and are, iconic commentators. All Italians know and repeat on many occasions the phrases that Gian Piero Galeazzi used to scream at the top of his lungs when commenting on the Olympic rowing competitions of the Abbagnale brothers, true legends of the sport. Galeazzi would scream until he lost his voice when he was on live television and Italians would get excited to hear him.

And again Guido Meda, the greatest motorcycling commentator who coined so many neologisms and catch phrases especially during the years when Valentino Rossi was winning every race. When Rossi got to the front of the race on the final straight of the race, Meda shouted “all stand on the couch,” and thousands of Italians actually stood on the couch and jumped for joy.

Finally, mention must be made of another commentator who made Italian television sports history. He is Franco Bragagna, the voice of athletics, winter sports, and especially the Olympic Games. Bragagna, like Rino Tommasi, is a living encyclopedia, and with each commentary he tells private anecdotes and statistics that even doing web searches can't find. Competent, humorous, when needed even controversial with athletes, coaches and organizers, his commentaries are among the most searched by Italians on youtube.