Mike Patrick, Voice of Sunday Night N.F.L. Games on ESPN, Dies at 80

Mike Patrick, a versatile for ESPN who called the National Football League games on Sunday nights for 18 years, died Sunday in Fairfax. Hey was 80 years old.

His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his doctor, Dr. Ir. Mark Vasiliadis. Kevin Kiley, a friend and former colleague of ESPN, said Mr. Patrick had been treated by heart and kidney diseases.

Mr. Patrick was one of ESPN’s best known announcer, calling university basketball, football and baseball, in addition to the NFL games. He brought a dominant voice and a discreet style that facilitated analysts to work with him.

“It was likely as an Egolsss announcer as I have worked,” said Fred Gaudelli, producer of the “Sunday Night Football” Games of ESPN for 11 years, in an interview. “He had a very natural way to announce, not as a carnival barking or a shout.”

Paul Maguire, who worked with Mr. Patrick and Joe Theisman in Sunday night games, said: “One thing about Mike is that he made the three -men stand the leader. Joe and I were followers when he took the reins.”

ESPN, which was launched in 1979, did not obtain the rights to televise the NFL games until eight years later. It was a coup d’etat for the cable network, even if the package was for games games only in the second half of the season. Mr. Patrick hardly got the work.

“I tried to reject it!” He said at a telephone conference with journalists in 2003. He reported how he told Steve Bornstein, then Senior Vice President of ESPN, who preferred to call university sports: “He said:” Are you an idiot? This is the most important thing we will have. “I thought about it for a day and said yes.

In 1998, ESPN bought the rights of the full season of “Sunday Night Football”, and Mr. Patrick continued to call the games during the 2005 season, when NBC Tok control of the package.

Despite his television prominence, Mr. Patrick maintained a low profile compared to contemporaries such as Michaels and Pat Summell.

“The day he entered a transmission stand, that was the most important thing for him, not recognition,” Kiley said. “It was naturally deferent.”

Mr. Patrick was born Michael Carduff on September 9, 1944 in Clarksburg, W.va., after he was adopted by his stepfather, Robert Frankhouser, was known as Michael Patrick Frankhouser, Kiley said. His mother was Eleanor (Freeman) Frankhouser.

Mike had an idea of ​​professional sports in high school by holding cards to tell Jay Randolph, a future network announcer that now called games at a local radio station, where football was.

“Jay was looking for some to help him because the ball enters the 1 Yarda line, it could be exactly where he was,” Patrick told the Website of West Virginia University in 2018.

He graduated from the George Washington University in 1966 with a degree in speech and began his career at WVSC Radio, in Somerset, Pa. In 1970, he went to WJXT, a television station in Jacksonville, Florida, where he was the sports director. He was also the game announcer for the Jacksonville Sharks game of the short life of the World Football League and the voice of the Basketball Games of the University of Jacksonville. He was chosen for the School Athletic Hall in 2009.

Mr. Patrick moved to WJLA, a television station in Washington, DC (later moved to Arlington, Virginia), where he was a sports reporter and weekend presenter, while he also called the basketball and football games for the University of Maryland. Mr. Kiley remembered WJLA as a landfill presenter on Saturday, knowing little about how to be.

“I entered Saturday morning for a 6 PM show, and suddenly Mike entered, from his vacation,” Kiley said in a telephone interview. “He spent the day with me and I did a job good enough for me to hire me.”

Mr. Patrick joined ESPN in 1982, starting more than 30 years of calling the basketball games of the Atlantic coast conference, including clashes between the University of Duke and the University of North Carolina, many with Dick Vitale as their partner; The final Four Final final, from 1996 to 2009; The College World Series; and university American football games.

Its last allocation was the Autozone Liberty Bowl 2017 between the State University of Iowa and the University of Memphis.

His survivors include his wife, Janet (Bishop) Patrick.

In the first year of “Sunday Night Football”, Mr. Patrick’s analyst at the stand was Roy Firestone, who was better known for his ESPN interview program and his celebrity impressions; They joined a former different player every week that appeared as a guest analyst. It didn’t work well.

“Roy was trying to get out of jokes, and they have Dick Butkus for a week, oj another and Jim Brown another,” Gaudelli said. “One week, Ed Marinaro appeared and said:” I am happy to be here, but I have not seen a game in a year. “

“At the end of the season, Mike told the producer, John Wildhack,” if you ever do this again, I will renounce. “

The guest analysts left next season, and Mr. Theisman replaced Mr. Firestone. Mr. Maguire joined them a decade later.