Rinaldi joined ESPN in May 2003 following a four-year stint as a reporter for CNN/SI from 1998 to 2002. He worked as a reporter for KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon from 1996 to 1998 and for WNDU-TV in South Bend, Indiana from 1993 to 1996. In December 2020, it was announced that he had left ESPN to sign with Fox Sports, where he is expected to cover major sporting events, including the Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup and major college football games.[1]
From 2006 to 2020, Rinaldi was the lead interviewer and feature reporter for ESPN and ABC's coverage of golf. In this capacity, he has been praised for many of his essays, especially those following the conclusion of major events. Rinaldi conducted the first interview of Tiger Woods after the incident on November 27, 2009, which led to Woods' public disclosure of his extra-marital affairs.
In 2017, Rinaldi served as a sideline reporter for the NBA playoffs on ESPN.
In 2016, he wrote a book called The Man in the Red Bandanna, about Welles Crowther, an NYC volunteer firefighter, who rescued 18 people before losing his own life when the World Trade Center collapsed after the September 11 attacks.
Prior to his career in journalism, Rinaldi was a high school English and English as a Second Language teacher in addition to being a handball coach at Morris High School in The Bronx. He had also taught at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh.[4]
^Kramer, Peter D. " 9/11: Man in the red bandanna's finest hour", The Record (Bergen County), September 6, 2016. Accessed September 7, 2016. "This week will find Tom Rinaldi pingponging from his home in Tenafly, New Jersey — less than a mile from the Cresskill home he grew up in — to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens, to cover the U.S. Open."