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.
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…
