Here's how a New Mexico kid covering the Olympics for NBC is loving life in Paris

Gadi Schwartz held his cards close to his chest.

On assignment Saturday in Paris, as the NBC News correspondent was helping cover the 2024 Olympic Games, he didn’t want to show his hand too early.

So, as the Cibola High School and New Mexico State University graduate took flight Saturday over the picturesque Paris skyline and listened to a balloon historian talk about the fiery, balloon-inspired cauldron lit last week during the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, Schwartz waited for just the right time to reveal his roots.

“They were telling me the history of ballooning and all these things. And I was respectfully nodding my head,” Schwartz told the Journal on Monday from Paris. Schwartz’s interview is included in the most recent Talking Grammer podcast.

“And then (the pilot’s) like, ‘Have you ever?’ And I looked at him and I said, I’m from Albuquerque.’ He’s like, ‘Ohhhhhh! Albuquerque! The Balloon Fiesta!’ ... Then we were just brothers. We were balloon brothers. It was great.”

Their bond blossomed as Schwartz worked on a story on the cauldron expected to air Wednesday on the family of NBC networks broadcasting the Olympics.

“I totally used my Albuquerque cred — my Burque cred,” Schwartz joked. “... All the headlines around the world have been calling it a hot air balloon. And we (New Mexicans) know better. We know that’s a gas balloon.”

Schwartz, the 41-year-old married father of two children, is working his third Summer Games and fifth Olympics overall. Technically, he’s “on loan” to NBC Sports from NBC News, where he’s served the past decade as a national correspondent regularly appearing on “NBC Nightly News” and the “Today Show.”

Schwartz, who is based in Los Angeles, is also currently hosting his own one-hour news show, “Stay Tuned Now,” on NBC Now, the network’s 24-hour streaming service.

“We’ve got amazing coverage coming out of New York and Washington and all the places of power, but we don’t really have the perspective from the West Coast and the West looking East. That’s kind of the premise of my show.”

“Stay Tuned Now” airs weekdays at 6 p.m. Mountain Time (5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern).

Schwartz, who grew up with a mom who was a longtime teacher for Albuquerque Public Schools and a father who was a weatherman for Univision, cut his teeth in broadcast journalism with KRWG, the on-campus television station at NMSU, and then served a decade after school at KOB-TV in Albuquerque, where he was well-known for his newsroom pranks.

On this week’s Talking Grammer podcast, he told of the time he grabbed anchor Tom Joles’ Green Bay Packers wallet and eyeglasses and worked with the person who refills the station’s vending machines to place them in a vending machine slot. The only way Joles could retrieve them was by putting a dollar in the machine and watching the rotating crank push them out like a bag of chips — hoping of course they didn’t get stuck.

Schwartz recorded it all and posted it on social media — a chronicling of his life around his job that’s increased his popularity on air and allowed him to gain trust from viewers.

Monday, on what was mostly a day off in Paris, he posted video of him taking clothes to a local laundromat — “Bonjour. It is laundry day. Laundry day in Paris!” — as well as sharing a story about the “mime in the world” he came across. He said, as a correspondent in Paris, he’s always on standby — even on his days off — as stories may develop.

“There was this guy in the middle of traffic, and I thought he was trying to fight a car. And then he turns around and this crowd is going crazy,” Schwartz said. “... He’s got a white painted face. And then he just starts messing with everybody. It was so cool. So I get those kind of weird little cultural things that we’re trying to infuse into a lot of our coverage because it’s just everywhere. And though, it’s cool because you get to experience it, but it’s also the job because you kind of have to document it. It’s great.”

Schwartz often shares glimpses into his home life on social media. He has two young children — Kira is 3 and Rio is 9 months — and is married to Kim Tobin, a former KOB reporter herself, though after Schwartz had already left Albuquerque for Los Angeles.

“She’s the coolest one in our family, really,” Schwartz said. “... I had just moved to Los Angeles and would still watch the noon show when I was working out in L.A. before my shift and saw her on KOB and totally fell in love.”

Now, it’s not lost at all on Schwartz how lucky he is to have Tobin, who is still a journalist, able to be with their two little ones, whom he describes as “so cute” while also being “little tornadoes.”

“It’s an impossible situation right now,” Schwartz said with the Eiffel Tower peering over his shoulder out his office window during his video interview with the Journal. “Kimmie, my wife, you are a saint and I love you so much. And I’m sorry for smiling so much.”

He said when he Facetimes her and the kids back home around midnight in Paris, he tries to block the views of the moonlight bouncing off the beautiful, ancient buildings.

“Yeah, when I get home, I am on dad duty times a trillion,” Schwartz said. “She is a saint.”

For now, Schwartz is enjoying his work on the other side of the globe, doing features on skateboarders, fencers, mimes and balloons — all while dreaming of the day someone will find a way to put fresh New Mexico green chile on a freshly cooked Paris baguette.

“A New Mexican in Paris,” he said. “It’s the best kind of worlds colliding.”