In The World Was Our Stage, producer/director Doug Wilson recounts his incredible fifty-year journey with ABC Sports and its beloved sports anthology program ABC's Wide World of Sports. His natural storytelling style and entertaining anecdotes capture not only "the human drama of athletic competition"--the hallmark of ABC's coverage--but also the unforgettable golden era of sports television. 

Wilson's career spanned nearly all of the show's groundbreaking run from 1961 through 1998, and his perspectives on celebrated athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Evel Knievel, Peggy Fleming, Arthur Ashe, and Scott Hamilton, among many others, are both humorous and poignant--all revealed against a background of historical events of the last half of the twentieth century. The World Was Our Stage reflects the spirit of the sporting world and the wonders of modern technology as they merged on television and set the standard for sports programming in the twenty-first century.

About the Author

Doug Wilson, a graduate of Colgate University, began his career in television as an NBC Page. He moved to ABC the following year. As a member of ABC's WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS production team, Wilson covered ten Olympic games and 51 different sports across five continents at events ranging from figure skating in Beijing, to wrist wrestling in Petaluma, to auto racing on the streets of Monaco, to Ping-Pong Diplomacy in Detroit. He has 17 Emmy Awards, and was recognized by the Directors Guild of America with its Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports. In 2003, he was inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame; and in 2011, he was given the Frank Bare Award for his contribution to the growth and popularity of the sport of gymnastics.