Steve Buckhantz (born 1949) is a television play-by-play announcer for the Washington Wizards.
His announcing career began as Sports Director at WTTG, a Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C. A District native, Buckhantz grew up in Arlington, Virginia where his father owned a construction company. He attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is of Jewish descent. One of his earlier jobs in sports was with WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia, where he covered the Braves and the Hawks and eventually became the night-time sports anchor.
He is currently in his 9th year as the Wizards play by play announcer, and has garnered a reputation for his emphatic expressions, such as "Dagger","Blocked by Haywood!", "Backbreaker", "How good is he Phil?", "How do you like that?" (the answer for Wizards fans whenever that question is posed -- "Not very much"), "Tooough shot!", "It's good if it goes!", "Score the field goal, and he'll go to the line!", "For the win!", "The refs have swallowed their whistles!", "That's gotta be five seconds!", "That's hard to believe","And Eddie Jordan is Livid!/Incensed", "Oh My!""Follows it up Twice!!", and "NOOO, Not Possible".
Buckhantz's catchphrases have seeped into the lexicon of Washington, D.C. area sports fans, who revel in using them to describe a myriad of non-sports related events (ex. males observing a friend attempting to ask a woman for her phone number exclaim "Dagger!" or "Backbreaker!" when she can be seen rejecting the friend's advances) as well as debating the subtle and compelling distinction between a "Dagger" (a made basket at a critical juncture in a game that stabs like a dagger at the opposing team's chance of victory) and a "Backbreaker" (a made basket at a critical juncture in a game that breaks any chance that the opposing team will win).
He works alongside analyst Phil Chenier, a former member of the Washington Bullets. He currently resides in Vienna, Virginia.
Buckhantz is also well known for being overly anti-climactic and pronouncing the 2nd "O" in the word "sophomore". In addition, he has a nice touch of informing his viewers how many three-point field goals a player has made for the season. Example: "And Gilbert Arenas drains the three from the corner! That's his 78th of the season."
One of Buckhantz's most famous calls was of Toronto Raptors Morris Peterson's game tying 3 point shot to force overtime of a game the Raptors defeated the Wizards in on March 30, 2007. He said, "Not possible! Not possible!" He repeated the same phrase on January 29, 2008 in another game against the Raptors, when Anthony Parker hit a 3 point shot to force overtime, just like Morris Peterson had done the previous season.
Buckhanz also says, "Simply Sensational!" after a superb play. He is also known for saying the Select Auto Imports commercial the same way everytime he announces it. He says "Go to Select Auto Imports in Alexandria, that's what I did, and it saved me thousands!"
Recently Steve kissed co-commentator Phil Chenier while on the Verizon Center Kiss Cam against the New Orleans Hornets 3/02/08. It was a friendly peck on the forehead.
