
Voice of the NFL Pat Summerall is dead at 82.
You name a sport, Pat Summerall could do play-by-play for it. The Masters? Check. The US Open tennis tournament? Check. The NBA? He was the man for the first season of the NBA on CBS and the 1974 NBA Championships. However, Summerall’s first major job, and his best-known work, was with football. For 40 years, from 1962 until 2002, Pat Summerall was the voice of NFL football, and that voice has been silenced. Long-time broadcaster Pat Summerall has died at age 82.
“I was so lucky I got to work with Pat,” said Summerall’s long-time broadcasting partner on both television and in video games, John Madden. “He was so easy to work with. He knew how to use words. For a guy like myself who rambles on and on and doesn’t always make sense, he was sent from heaven.”
Summerall, born George Allen Summerall, acquired the nickname Pat in a pretty amusing fashion. An end and placekicker with the NFL’s Detroit Lions, Chicago Cardinals, and New York Giants from 1952 until 1961. When Summerall nailed a kick for an extra point, the box score would read PAT (point-after-touchdown) Summerall, and Pat Summerall was born.
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