Mike Patrick, a pioneering voice in sports broadcasting who spent 36 years at ESPN and became synonymous with the network’s NFL “Sunday Night Football” coverage, died Sunday of natural causes in Fairfax, Virginia. He was 80.
Patrick’s death was confirmed Tuesday by his doctor and officials from his hometown of Clarksburg, West Virginia, according to ESPN.
“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.”
Patrick joined ESPN in 1982 during the network’s early days and quickly established himself as one of its signature broadcasters. In 1987, he became the play-by-play voice for “ESPN Sunday Night Football,” a position he held for its entire 18-year run until 2005 when the NFL awarded those rights to NBC.
Throughout his career, Patrick called more than 30 ACC basketball championships, covered the Women’s Final Four from 1996 to 2009, and handled play-by-play for the College World Series for over a decade. His final broadcast was the AutoZone Liberty Bowl on December 30, 2017, before retiring in 2018.
Patrick’s love for broadcasting began as a struggling college student at George Washington University, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force upon graduation in 1966.
“I stumbled across a leaflet on a bulletin board,” Patrick recalled in 2018. “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.”
He added: “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.”
Before joining ESPN, Patrick began his professional broadcasting career in 1966 at WVSC-Radio in Somerset, Pennsylvania. He later served as sports director at WJXT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida, providing play-by-play for Jacksonville Sharks’ World Football League telecasts and Jacksonville University basketball games. In 1975, he moved to WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., where he called Maryland football and basketball games and NFL preseason games for Washington.
Tributes from colleagues highlighted Patrick’s impact on the industry and his personal qualities.
“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,” said ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale. “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.”
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who worked with Patrick after playing college basketball during Patrick’s ACC broadcasting days, wrote: “So sorry to learn of the passing of the great Mike Patrick. Mike was the voice of ACC Basketball when I was a player, and I had the honor of working with him and calling him a friend. Mike Patrick was a pro’s pro.”
Upon his retirement in 2018, Patrick expressed contentment with his career: “It’s wonderful to reflect on how I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do with my life. 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.”
Patrick is remembered for his versatility across multiple sports, his distinctive voice, and his enduring influence on sports broadcasting during a career that spanned more than half a century.