Australian rules football commentator (born 1949)
Dennis John Cometti (born 26 March 1949) is an Australian retired sports commentator, player and coach of Australian rules football. In a career spanning 51 years, his smooth voice, dry humour and quick wit became his trademark. Until his retirement, he remained the only television broadcaster to have spanned the entire duration of the AFL national competition, serving the Seven Network, Nine Network and Broadcom. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Australia Day Honours.
Cometti retired as a sports commentator, with his last game being the 2021 AFL Grand Final, which was called for Triple M in Perth on 25 September 2021.
Early life.
Cometti was born in Geraldton, Western Australia, the son of Dulcie (née Scarlett) and James Cometti. His father was the son of Italian migrants; his paternal grandfather Giovanni Cometti was from the village of Baruffini in Lombardy and moved to Australia to work on the Western Australian Goldfields. Cometti's father died suddenly when he was a teenager.
WAFL and VFL career.
Cometti played 40 matches for West Perth. His best year in the West Australian Football League was 1968, when he kicked 63 goals playing for West Perth under Graham Farmer. Farmer wrote, ‘Dennis had just turned 19 and was well over 6 foot with the ability and agility of a co-ordinated rover. We thought we had a champion.’ In 1971, Cometti made the senior list at Footscray but, due to injuries and media commitments, was unable to make a mark and did not play a Victorian Football League senior match.
On his return to Perth, he played with some success in the Sunday Football League. He initially played for Wanneroo before moving to Maddington as captain-coach, leading the club to four successive grand finals and winning successive premierships in 1974, 1975 and 1976. After retiring as a player, he later coached Osborne Park and Kelmscott, winning a premiership in 1979.
In 1982, Cometti was appointed coach of West Perth. The club finished third in his first year, but his tenure at West Perth was otherwise uneventful, and the team finished sixth in both 1983 and 1984. Other than a brief period as chairman of selectors for the Western Australia Australian rules football team, that was Cometti's last active involvement in club football.
Commentary career.
Early radio career (1968–1971).
In 1968, Cometti commenced his media career as radio announcer in Perth as a Top-40 disc jockey at radio station 6KY. Over the following five years, he worked as an announcer on 6PM, 3DB in Melbourne and 6PR, again in Perth.
He broadcast his first football match—a state game between Western Australia and Victoria at Subiaco Oval—in 1971. Melbourne station 3KZ needed a caller, and, due to a quirk of fate, Cometti volunteered to sit alongside Ian Major.
ABC (1972–1985).
He joined the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1972 where he concentrated exclusively on sport. He broadcast his first Test match in 1973 (at 23 the youngest in ABC history) and for the next 13 years broadcast test cricket alongside Alan McGilvray. He also called WAFL football during his time at the national broadcaster either side of his stint as West Perth coach.
Seven Network (1986–2001).
In 1986 his move to the Seven Network coincided with the formation of the West Coast Eagles in the VFL. However, because of a bitter battle over television broadcast rights that excluded the Seven Network, Cometti broadcast the first season of the expanded VFL competition on independent broadcaster Broadcom in all states apart from Victoria.
In 1988, when Seven regained the VFL television rights, Cometti immediately became the highest profile commentator of VFL/AFL matches (based in Western Australia where he presented the evening news sports segment). He stayed with Seven until 2001 as main sports anchor for "Seven News" in Perth, when they lost the rights to broadcast AFL matches. He was succeeded by Basil Zempilas.
Along with his football and news commitments Cometti, with the blessing of Channel 7, broadcast a further 51 test matches for the Packer radio network alongside Henry Blofeld, Richie Benaud, Ian and Greg Chappel and Tony Greig.
In 1997 Cometti toured South Africa with Drew Morphett covering the three test series on the Seven Network.
In the late 1990s, he was among those to have been sent up by impersonator Andrew Startin on "Live And Kicking". Actor Eric Bana was another to 'do' Cometti.
He also commentated at the Summer Olympics swimming competitions in Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000. When he retired Cometti had broadcast more Australian Olympic Gold Medals than any other commentator of the television era.
Nine Network (2002–2006).
Cometti switched to the Nine Network in 2002 and alongside Eddie McGuire, Dermott Brereton and Garry Lyon became the channel's leading Australian rules football caller. During those five years he was voted Australian Football Media Association (AFMA) television broadcaster of the year five times (career total 11). Cometti dominated Australia-wide newspaper polls for fan popularity.
He read the sports report on the weeknight "National Nine News" in Perth.
Occasionally at Nine, he returned to cricket commentary and in 2003/04 called an Australia A game. 
Return to Seven Network (2007–2016).
With the Seven Network regaining the rights to broadcast AFL games starting from 2007, Cometti re-signed with Seven to call games alongside Bruce McAvaney. Cometti also had a weekly segment on "Seven News" in Perth during the AFL season.
In August 2014, Cometti announced he would retire as an AFL television commentator at the end of the 2016 season. His career was commemorated on-air during Seven's coverage of the 2016 AFL Grand Final, the last AFL match he called on television, accompanied by messages of congratulations from sponsor AAMI. He commentated 16 grand finals.
Later radio and newspaper career (2008–2021).
Between 2008 and 2011 Cometti was the lead AFL caller on Saturday afternoons for 3AW, initially alongside Rex Hunt and later Brian Taylor. In 2009, he also wrote a fortnightly column and weekly blogs for "The West Australian" newspaper.
When Cometti revealed he would be joining Triple M in 2012, he was immediately removed from 3AW's lineup to call the 2011 AFL finals series and was replaced by Dwayne Russell.
Cometti called Saturday afternoon games for Triple M with James Brayshaw, Danny Frawley and Garry Lyon. He was voted the nation's top AFL radio caller in a national News Ltd newspaper poll in 2012.
After retiring from TV commentary, Cometti continued to call matches for Triple M for games in Western Australia with Lachy Reid, Andrew Embley, Xavier Ellis, and his son, Mark, as the statistician. Cometti was also involved in the Seven Network's coverage of the WAFL. In 2021, Cometti announced he would be retiring from broadcasting for good after the Perth-staged 2021 AFL Grand Final. In the aftermath of that game Cometti was inducted into The Western Australian Football League Hall of Fame.
An incomplete compendium of captivating Cometti-isms.
Cometti is famous for his memorable one-liners, sometimes known as Cometti-isms or Comettiisms. Cometti himself has said his humour is derived from his days trying to entertain listeners on the FM radio broadcasts of his early career as well as teenage afternoons firing off wisecracks from the hill at Perth's Leederville Oval.
Here is an incomplete compendium containing a cavalcade of Cometti's Cometti-isms over his 51-year broadcasting career:
Other work.
Cometti was featured on SBS in an episode in the first Australian series of "Who Do You Think You Are?", where he traced his father's Italian heritage back to Italy and his mother's English heritage back to three convicts and a freeman. The show also revealed his great-great-grandmother (although never charged) may have been involved in the deaths of two of her husbands.
In 2012, he appeared in a television commercial series for Carlton Draught's Draught Pick iPhone app.
Video games.
Cometti was the voice-over commentator for the "AFL" video game series between 2004 and 2017.
Bibliography.
"Back to the Place, Back to the Time" (1997)
"Centimetre Perfect: The Classic Commentary" (2004)
"That's Ambitious: More Classic Commentary" (2007)
"The Game" (edited, 2012)
"Kick it to the Shithouse" (foreword, 2012)
Awards and honours.
Cometti is a member of both the Melbourne Cricket Club and AFMA Halls of Fame.
In October 2013, Cometti became the number one ticket holder of the Perth Wildcats. He held the position until September 2024.
Dennis Cometti is the name of an , named in Cometti's honour.
Poet Mick Colliss performed a poem entitled "Centimetre Perfect" that paid tribute to Cometti on a 6NA, the radio station where Cometti got his start.
Personal life.
Cometti was born in Geraldton, Western Australia, of Italian, English and French descent. He is married to Velia. They have two children: daughter Ricki (born 1979) and son Mark (born in 1983). Mark was a professional wrestler (The Outback Silverback) in Orlando, Florida, for six years. 
References.
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