One of the most prominent and influential broadcasters on the ESPN platform, longtime play-by-play commentator Mike Patrick passed away Sunday at the age of 80.
According to ESPN, Patrick’s physician confirmed that the West Virginia native, who was the voice of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Football” for 18 seasons, died of natural causes in Fairfax, Virginia.
Patrick climbed the ladder to national stardom at ‘The Worldwide Leader in Sports’, ESPN back in 1982, and was a consistent figure on the network’s football and basketball broadcasts for over three decades. His swan song ESPN call came in the 2017 AutoZone Liberty Bowl.
“It’s wonderful to reflect on how I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do with my life,” Patrick said when he left ESPN in 2018. “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.”
His legendary career included being the play-by-play announcer for the first NFL regular-season game ever broadcast on ESPN, back in 1987, with Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire often joining him as color commentators over the years. Patrick would go on to be the voice of “Sunday Night Football” from 1987 through 2005, as well as over thirty years of ACC men’s basketball championship games and the network’s Women’s Final Four games from 1996-2009.
“I’m so sorry to learn about the passing of Mike Patrick. I called him Mr. ACC as he had a great love for doing the big ACC games,” ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale said Tuesday. “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.”
Patrick’s rich voice was a familiar one as well as a staple to ESPN fans and viewers, as he was the lead announcer for many years of college football and the College World Series, including “Thursday Night Football” and “Saturday Night Football” broadcasts.
“Mike Patrick called countless significant events over decades at ESPN and is one of the most influential on-air voices in our history,” said Burke Magnus, president of content for ESPN. “In addition to calling ESPN’s first-ever regular season NFL game and voicing the ‘Sunday Night Football’ franchise for 18 seasons, Mike’s work on college sports was exceptional.
Embed from Getty Images“For 36 years, he called football and men’s and women’s basketball, including the Women’s Final Four and so many historic matchups between ACC rivals Duke and UNC. Our deepest condolences to Mike’s family and his many friends throughout the industry. “
Patrick first launched his career, taking to the airwaves in 1966, working at Somerset, Pennsylvania. radio station WVSC. Four years later, his journey took him to Jacksonville, Florida TV station WJXT, where he became the sports director and began calling World Football League games for the Jacksonville Sharks, along with Jacksonville University basketball.
Patrick headed back north in 1975, taking a position as a reporter and weekend anchor for Washington, D.C.’s WJLA. There, he called University of Maryland football and basketball games, as well as Washington NFL preseason games for the next seven years.
Then Patrick got his big break, joining ESPN in 1982, not long after the network debuted in 1979, and would remain there until retiring in 2018. Over the years, he became most recognized as the voice of “Sunday Night Football,” calling NFL games for 19 seasons from 1987-2005, as previously stated. Patrick’s first call of a college football game for ESPN came in 1985, and he would go on to be the lead play-by-play announcer for “Thursday Night Football” from 1991-97, and in 2006 moved over to “College Football Primetime.”
From eight years, 2009-17, Patrick was on the mic for ESPN and ABC broadcasts of college games on Saturday afternoons while continuing to capture audiences and work the College World Series, the women’s Final Four, and numerous NFL playoff games on ABC. Patrick’s work went beyond the physical microphone and extended into the world of video games as well, with EA Sports hiring him as the voice of the MVP: NCAA Baseball series in 2006 and 2007.
Patrick graduated from George Washington University where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
