It’s Official: Albert Is Returning

Ten months after his career collapsed in a sex scandal, an apologetic Marv Albert was rehired Wednesday by the Madison Square Garden Network to anchor a nightly sports show and do radio play-by-play of New York Knick games.

“What I did was wrong,” Albert said at a news conference, speaking of his role in the scandal that cost him his job telecasting NBA and NFL games for NBC.

“I hurt many people, including my fiancee, my family, my friends and my employers. For that, I am sorry.”

Albert had resigned from MSG in September and was fired by NBC after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. He was accused of throwing his former girlfriend, Vanessa Perhach, on a bed in a Virginia hotel room in February 1997, biting her on the back more than a dozen times and forcing her to perform oral sex.

Albert’s new job takes him full circle; he began his career in the 1960s broadcasting Knick and New York Ranger games on the radio and was the Knicks’ TV voice for MSG at the time of his downfall.

In addition to calling about half the Knicks’ games on radio, Albert will anchor “MSG Sports Desk,” a half-hour nightly roundup of local sports.

“This is a day for me to look forward and turn the page on what has been a difficult time in my life,” he said.

Dave Checketts, president and CEO of Madison Square Garden, said he had consulted with Garden shareholders and advertisers before deciding to bring Albert back. Garden officials even talked to the therapist Albert has been seeing since September.

Checketts, who had left the door open for Albert to return last fall, said the sportscaster was “family” and was being rewarded for his loyalty through the years.

Albert also said he had recently narrated part of the Chicago Bulls’ championship video at the NBA’s request.

After stopping his lurid trial in September to plead guilty to assault and battery, Albert was spared jail time if he stayed out of trouble for a year. He said he must continue to see his therapist as a condition of his probation.

A phone number listed for Perhach in Vienna, Va., is disconnected, and a woman answering the phone at the office of one of her attorneys, George DePolo, said they would have no comment.

Media coverage of his scandal was “embarrassing and humbling,” Albert said. “I went through a nightmare.”