White Sox announcer gives play-by-play on finding success with … – CNN

Born with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects body movement and muscle coordination, Benetti wasn't deterred from pursuing a path to sports broadcasting, though even he did not envision how high he might rise.

"I never had any aspirations of being a TV person," Benetti told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN. "I was self-conscious about it."

Benetti is a graduate of Syracuse University, whose public communications program has produced titans of the sportscasting industry such as Bob Costas and Mike Tirico. Benetti kept to radio during college, but support from his producers at ESPN pushed him toward television.

"It was probably a couple years into it that I felt really OK on camera," Jason said. "And then at some point, I said, 'You know what? It's gonna look how it's gonna look. And whatever flows from that is gonna flow from that.'"

What has flowed from Benetti's broadcasting career -- in addition to popular and critical acclaim -- is a public platform to articulate the struggles that people with disabilities face and demonstrate what is possible when looking past someone's perceived deficiencies.

"My concern is that there will be people who are like me or like somebody else who are 'out-group' who won't be able to have the feeling that I've had," Benetti said. "To be able to embrace the thing they love because there were no barriers to that."

"First-blush barriers," he elaborated. "First reaction detractions."

"I never thought the person saying that would end up being the President," Benetti said. "It was hard, it was really hard for me, honestly, to see that happen and to see people rally behind it."

Nevertheless, Benetti draws hope from his own journey. "Once people around me learned to look past their first reaction, my disability is gone to them," he said. "It's in all of us ... we all have the ability to go past our first reaction."

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White Sox announcer gives play-by-play on finding success with ... - CNN