Mike Patrick, a broadcaster who spent more than three decades calling NFL, college football and college basketball games for ESPN, died Sunday, the network announced. He was 80 years old.
ESPN said Patrick, who retired in 2018, died of natural causes in Fairfax, Virginia.
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Patrick graduated from George Washington University in 1966, and it was during his time as an aspiring baseball player in college that he discovered broadcasting under humble circumstances, as he recalled in 2018:
“I stumbled across a leaflet on a bulletin board,” Patrick said. “It said, ‘WRGW, the college radio station, needs talk show hosts, newscasters, sportscasters, disc jockeys.’ You know, that sounds like fun, and fun was all I ever cared about.
“I was almost thrown out of college for having bad grades…until I saw this sign on the board. I went upstairs at 12:30 on a Monday afternoon and said, ‘I’d like to be a sportscaster.’ They said, ‘Oh, we’ve got a show at 4.’ Really? I had no idea what I was going to do, but I did the show from 4 to 5 that day, and I was hooked. I loved it. To this day, I loved every game that I did, even the bad ones.
After graduation, Patrick immediately went into broadcasting for a swath of local television outlets. He reached ESPN in its nascent days in 1982, and soon became one of its signature voices.
He got his signature assignment in 1987, when ESPN acquired the rights to air NFL Sunday night games. Patrick would be the play-by-play voice of “ESPN Sunday Night Football” for its entire existence, from Day 1 to its final game in 2005, when the NFL awarded those rights to NBC.
Patrick also called more than 30 ACC basketball championships, was the voice of ESPN’s Women’s Final Four coverage from 1996 to 2009 and handled the College World Series for more than a decade. His longest assignment, though, was college football, with his final assignment the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on Dec. 30, 2017.
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Via ESPN, he retired without many regrets:
“It’s wonderful to reflect on how I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do with my life,” Patrick said. “At the same time, I’ve had the great pleasure of working with some of the very best people I’ve ever known, both on the air and behind the scenes. While I’m not sure exactly what’s next for me, I’m looking forward to continuing my journey with new life experiences.”
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