Famed American sports commentator Greg Gumbel has died of cancer at the age of 78, his family announced on Friday.

Gumbel, who worked for CBS Sports for decades, was considered a fixture in US sports, particularly American football and basketball.

In 2001, he became the first Black sportscaster to do Super Bowl play-by-play announcements.

In a statement, his family said that “he leaves a legacy of love, inspiration and dedication for 50 extraordinary years in the sports broadcasting industry; and his iconic voice will never be forgotten”.

The statement added that Gumbel “passed away peacefully and surrounded by much love after a courageous battle with cancer.”

“Greg approached his illness the way you would expect him to: with stoicism, grace and positivity.”

Originally from New Orleans, Gumbel grew up in Chicago and first joined CBS in 1989 after years working at New York Knicks basketball and Yankees baseball games for the Madison Square Garden Network.

However, his start came in the early 1970s when an executive at a local NBC affiliate in Chicago asked him to broadcast a high school basketball game every weekend.

“He said, ‘I have this idea and I want you to take it and do it,'” Gumbel recalled in a 2021 interview. “We introduced our audience to a lot of guys who went on to become famous.”

Jim Nantz, a veteran of CBS Sports and another prominent sportscaster, called Gumbel a “broadcast king.”

“He was as selfless a broadcaster as anyone in the industry has ever known,” he said. “Our professional careers were closely linked for nearly 35 years, and he was an outstanding teammate and friend.”

““He really was one of the greats,” another longtime colleague, Lesley Visser, told CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. affiliate. “He just had an easy touch, he had wit about him and everyone loved working with him.”

“Greg had an innate dignity that he brought with him,” she added.

At CBS Sports, Gumbel hosted the popular pre-game, halftime and post-game show “NFL Today” twice, including three Super Bowls in 1992, 2013 and 2016.

Gumbel also spent four years at NBC Sports, where he hosted the “NFL on NBC” show and several other Super Bowl pre-game shows.

He briefly retired from NFL reporting in 2003 before returning in 2005 and continuing in that role until 2022.

The longtime sportscaster also served as lead anchor for CBS Sports during the 1994 Winter Olympics, as well as co-host on the weekday broadcasts of the 1992 Winter Games.

Additionally, he was a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball and became a fixture on college football broadcasts.

In March of this year, he missed his first National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament since 1997 due to unspecified health problems.

He had signed a contract extension with CBS in 2023 that allowed him to return to covering college basketball while retiring from his work covering the NFL.

Gumbel is survived by his wife Marcy, his daughter Michelle and his younger brother Bryant, also a well-known broadcaster and former host of the “Today” show.