Mike Patrick, the longtime sports broadcaster whose varied career included calling the first regular-season NFL game ever broadcast on ESPN, died on Sunday, according to a report by ESPN. He was 80.
Patrick died of natural causes in his Fairfax, Va., home, a local funeral home told ESPN. Patrick, who spent more than 36 years with ESPN, got his start with the network as a play-by-play broadcaster in 1982. Over the decades, he was heard calling a wide range of sports, including the NFL, college football, basketball and baseball, and events like the women’s Final Four and the College World Series.
Advertisement
His most prominent assignment began in 1987, when ESPN first started broadcasting NFL regular-season games on Sunday night. Patrick would remain the voice of “Sunday Night Football” until 2005, sharing the booth for years with Paul Maguire and Joe Theismann. He was also a familiar voice on prominent ESPN and ABC college football and basketball broadcasts.
One of Patrick’s most memorable moments came in overtime of an Alabama-Georgia college football game in 2007. With Georgia trailing 23-20 and getting ready to snap the ball at the Alabama 25-yard line, Patrick asked his booth partner, Todd Blackledge, “What is Britney doing with her life?”
“What? Britney who?” a baffled Blackledge replied. (Patrick was referring to Britney Spears, though he never supplied Blackledge or viewers with a clear explanation for why he brought her up.)
ESPN said that Patrick called more than 30 ACC basketball championships for the network and was the voice of its women’s Final Four coverage from 1996 to 2009.
“I’m so sorry to learn about the passing of Mike Patrick,” Dick Vitale, who often teamed with Patrick on college basketball broadcasts, said in a statement. “I called him Mr. ACC as he had a great love for doing the big ACC games. Mike had great energy and a keen knowledge of ACC basketball, and I truly enjoyed sitting next to him calling so many special games over the years.”
A native of Clarksburg, W.Va., Patrick began his broadcasting career in Somerset, Pa. He was soon named sports director at a television station in Jacksonville, Fla., where he called Jacksonville Sharks’ World Football League games for one season. He also called Jacksonville University basketball games for radio and television.
Patrick was later inducted into the university’s Hall of Fame.
A graduate of George Washington University, Patrick was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1975, serving as a reporter and weekend anchor for WJLA-TV in Arlington, Va. Patrick also called play-by-play for Maryland football and basketball (1975-78) and NFL preseason games for Washington from 1975 to 1982.
(Photo: Hunter Martin / Getty Images)
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
