J-Speaks: The Passing Of A Legendary Broadcaster

For 60 years, he was the voice for some of the best games, and moments in collegiate, and professional sports in California and for networks of NBC, CBS, ESPN. His catchphrases would become signatures of his career that made him a multiple Emmy award winner throughout his career, and made an impact on many of today’s sports broadcasters. On Thursday, that great voice that became the soundtrack for some of the most memorable sports moments over the past six decades was sadly silenced at the end of this week.  

On Thursday night, Richard Alan “Dick” Enberg passed away at his home in La Jolla, CA. He was 82 years old. He is survived by his wife Barbara (nee Hedbring); their son Ted, who is also a sportscaster, and their two daughters Nicole Enberg Vaz, and Emily. His first marriage to Jeri Taylor, a television scriptwriter, and producer, who is best known for working on the famed show “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and “Star Trek: Voyager” they had three children, Alexander Enberg, who is an actor; Andrew, who is an actor-musician; and daughter Jennifer. Enberg is also survived by three grandchildren

Enberg, who was a 14-time Emmy award-winner, which included garnering a Lifetime Achievement honor, confirmed the passing of her father to The Associated Press. 

She said that the family had become concerned when her father did not arrive on Thursday from his L.A. flight to Boston, MA. He was found dead at his previously mentioned home in the San Diego neighborhood of La Jolla, CA with packed bags. 

Nicole mentioned to The Associated Press that the family believes that her father passed away from a heart attack, but are awaiting the official word on what he died from. 

“It’s very, very, very shocking,” Vaz, who now resides in Boston said. “He’d been busy with two podcasts, and was full of energy. 

It was reported by NBA.com that Barbara was already in “Beantown” awaiting the arrival of her husband. 

In a statement released by the Enberg’s lawyer Dennis Coleman, it stated that the family, “is grateful for the kind thoughts, and prayers of all of Dick’s countless fans, and dear friends.” 

“At this time, we are all still processing the significant loss, and we ask for prayers, and respectful privacy in the immediate aftermath of such untimely news.” 

On Friday, flowers were placed on Enberg’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as said by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, according to NBA.com. 

Born on Jan. 9, 1935 in Mount Clemens, MI to Arnie, and Belle Enberg, Dick, and his family first lived in Bridgeport, CT, and then at the age of two, the family moved to Southern California in 1940, and then moved back to a farm in Armada, MI. 

Enberg would listen to Detroit Tigers games on the radio, and he would create his own broadcasts as he hit rocks across a nearby road with a stick. 

His baseball idol was the late great Hall of Famer for the Boston Red Sox Ted Williams. 

At Armada High School, Enberg played basketball, baseball, and football, where he played quarterback. 

After graduating from high school in nearby Armada, Enberg attended Central Michigan University, where he played baseball for the Maroon and Gold Chippewas. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1957. 

Twenty-three years later, he would return to his alma mater to be the commencement speaker for the 1980 graduating class. 

In his memory of the great sportscaster, the Central Michigan (8-5) football players in their 37-14 loss in the “Famous Idaho Potatoes Bowl” versus Wyoming (7-6) wore decals on their helmets, and the coaches had written on their hats one of Enberg’s signature phrases that he used a lot during his career, “Oh My!” 

While he was earning his master’s, and doctorate in health sciences from Indiana University, Enberg’s sports broadcasting journey began as a radio station custodian in Mount Pleasant, MI at WCEN Radio as a junior at Central Michigan.

He parlayed that job, where he made $1 an hour, where he commentated weekend sports, and disc jockeying, where he also made $1 per hour into a sports casting position, where his first sports broadcast was a semi-pro baseball game at a field in Rose Bush, MI in 1956. 

"In the first inning, one of the players in sliding into second base broke his leg, and they only had nine men," Enberg said in recalling that game. "So, they had to call off the game. So, my first baseball broadcast lasted less than an inning. 

From there, Enberg would go on to graduate school at Indiana University, where he called basketball, and football games. It was here where he tried out what would become one of his signature phrases "Oh My!"

"My mother being Midwestern, 'Oh My!' was part of her vocabulary. So, I tried 'Oh My!' in a couple of exciting moments," Enberg said once. "And later, in the graduate dormitory, a couple of the guys said, 'He Enberg, Oh My! I figured well that's it."

In 1961, Enberg would call the first of many NCAA Tournament games when he was the commentator for the championship game between the Cincinnati Bearcats and the Ohio State Buckeyes. 

Enberg then became the voice of the first radio broadcast of the “Little 500,” a bicycle racing event that gained its popularity in the 1979 comedy-drama film “Breaking Away.” He was also the play-by-play commentator for Hoosiers football and basketball games.

After graduating, Enberg in search of a teaching position got his dream job at then San Fernando Valley State College, which is now California State University, Northridge. There, he taught health, and was the assistant baseball coach.

"I get to teach, and I finally get to coach as well. I loved wearing that uniform," Enberg said of this milestone.

That dream job did not pay as much, and Enberg picked up work broadcasting L.A. State college football games, and eventually was discovered by California Angels owner, music, and movie star Gene Autry, who also owned a Los Angeles television station.  

With the support of Autry, Enberg's broadcasting career really hit its stride, where he anchored the nightly sports report for the CW-affiliate KTLA as well as calling UCLA Bruins basketball games, and doing radio commentary for the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL, and for the then California Angels baseball for KMPC for a decade. 

Each time the Angels won, Enberg would conclude each broadcast by saying, “And the halo shines tonight,” referencing the “Big A” scoreboard at Anaheim Stadium, and the halo at the top of the scoreboard, which lit up for all to see, particularly from the adjacent freeway. 

In 1968, then UCLA athletic director J.D. Morgan recommended Enberg to be national broadcaster for the syndicated TVS Television Network to cover what would be dubbed the “Game of the Century,” between the Houston Cougars, led by NBA Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes, and the Bruins, led by then Lew Alcindor, who would later be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Jan. 20, 1968.

The No. 2 Cougars defeated the No. 1 Bruins 71-69, ending UCLA’s 47-game winning streak. 

That game Enberg, and his TV partner Hall of Famer Bob Pettit called between the three time national champion Bruins against the Cougars at the Astrodome in Houston, TX, that was attended by 52,693, and watched by many more on television demonstrated that people would watch college basketball in “Prime Time,” and started an evolution that is at great heights today with games happening nightly not just locally during the college basketball season, on the nationally on CBS, ESPN, and on FOX Sports 1. 

Enberg said that contest was the most historically important event he ever covered in his broadcasting career. 

“That was the platform from which college basketball’s popularity was sent into the stratosphere,” he said prior to his retirement from broadcasting last year. “The ’79 game, the Magic-Bird game, everyone wants to credit that as the greatest game of all-time. That was just the booster rocket that sent it even higher… UCLA, unbeaten; Houston unbeaten. And then the thing that had to happen, and Coach (John) Wooden hated when I said this, but UCLA had to lose. That became a monumental event.”

Earlier this year, UCLA renamed its Media Center in Pauley Pavilion after Enberg. At intermission of a Bruins game in February, NBA Hall of Famers, and former UCLA greats Bill Walton, and Jamaal Wilkes presented Enberg with a No. 8 jersey, in honor of the amount of championships they won in his nine years as their play-by-play announcer. 

“That’s not going to happen again,” Enberg said before that contest. “Who was looking over me? To be able to come in, and ride the (John) Wooden Wave.” 

While he had the magical touch to call any collegiate or pro sporting event, his favorite sport was baseball, and his favorite moment in the broadcast booth was then Angels' pitcher, and Hal of Famer Nolan Ryan's second no-hitter of the 1917 season on July 15 that year. 

As for Enberg, his sports broadcasting career hit the stratosphere when in 1975 he joined NBC Sports, and for the next quarter century broadcast the gamut of sporting events from the National Football League (NFL), calling eight Super Bowls, with his last being Super Bowl XXXII, won by the Denver Broncos, 31-24 versus the Green Bay Packers. 

Enberg also served as the No. 1 commentator for NBC’s coverage Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the U.S. Open golf championship. 

He commentated “The Peacock’s” coverage of Notre Dame Football, college basketball, and then became the voice of Wimbledon, the Breeders’ Cup, and French Open tennis tournaments, with color commentary coming from Bud Collins, and later John McEnroe. 

Enberg also commentated heavyweight boxing, Breeders’ Cup, and several other horse racing events, and the Olympic Games, which also included the on-air host of the 1992 games in Barcelona. 

In 1979, Enberg replaced Curt Gowdy, who he would win Naismith Memorial Baseball Hall of Fame Award named after his longtime friend, and peer in broadcasting in 1995 as the lead play-by-play announcer for the NFL on NBC in 1979, and in 1980 picked up the network’s telecast of the 1980 Rose Bowl between the University of Southern California Trojans versus the Buckeyes.

The then No. 3 ranked Trojans (10-0-1) won that annual New Year’s Day Bowl game over the No. 1 ranked Buckeyes 17-16, thanks to a one-yard touchdown run by Heisman Trophy winner that season running back Charles White, who also capture Player of the Game for his 247-yard rushing performance. 

Enberg would be the voice in the booth of “The Rose Bowl” in Pasadena, CA for the next decade, until ABC took over the broadcast in 1989.  

Gowdy, and Enberg are the only two broadcasters honored in the basketball, baseball, and football Halls of Fame.  

In 2000, CBS hired Enberg, and he served as a play-by-play announcer for the network’s coverage of the NFL, college basketball, and the U.S. Open, which he called through 2011. 

He also contributed as an anchor of CBS’s coverage of The Masters, and PGA Championship golf conducting interviews, and as an essayist. 

The Enberg Essays became staples of CBS’s coverage of the network’s coverage of the NCAA Men’s Final Four. 

His Final call of a collegiate basketball game for CBS was the East Regional Final between the University of Kentucky Wildcats versus the West Virginia Mountaineers. He continued to call the U.S. Open for CBS through 2011, and while he hoped to continue commentating late-season NFL games for the network, they omitted his name from their announcing roster in 2010. Enberg did get to call one more match, and conduct one more broadcast essay during the 2014 U.S. Open, as a commemoration of CBS’s final year of covering the event, which was taken over by ESPN in 2015. 

Beginning in 2004, Enberg was the play-by-play commentator for ESPN 2’s coverage of Wimbledon, the French Open, and the Australian Open in 2005. 

Enberg stopped calling the French Open due to his commitment as the television play-by-play announcer for the San Diego Padres, signing a multi-year contract in December 2009, to call 110-120 games a season for channel 4SD, now YurView California. His co-pilot in the broadcast booth was Mark Grant. 

In his first season, Enberg took some criticism from Padres’ fans for his perceived lack of enthusiasm for the home team, and for getting “too excited” when the opposing team made great plays. Enberg’s response was “I find that a real compliment.” 

He did make an adjustment to his commentating style by limiting the use of his signature home run call of “Touch ‘em all!” when a Padres player hit a homer. 

In 2012, Enberg returned as the voice of the Padres as their telecasts moved to Fox Sports San Diego, as a new 20-year deal was signed between the team, and the new formed network. 

On Sept. 23, 2015, Enberg indicated that he would call Padres games for one more season, and then retire. 

He went into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY that same year as the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award. 

His last call of a Padres’ game came on Oct. 2, 2016, and in his last week on air, he made a guest appearance with Los Angeles Dodgers legendary announcer Vincent Edward “Vin” Scully, who also was concluding his career in the broadcast both after 67 seasons. 

“To me, Dick Enberg was the greatest all-around sportscaster who ever lived, and will never be emulated…,” Scully said in a statement on Friday. “He had my respect, admiration, and my friendship.”

Before the close of his career as a baseball commentator, on May 21, 2016, Enberg served as the special guest commentator for the Detroit Tigers in their home game with the Tampa Bay Rays on Fox Sports Detroit (FSD), with Kirk Gibson as the color analyst. 

It was a special moment for Enberg, as the Tigers were his team during his childhood as he as mentioned earlier grew up in the Detroit area. He also called a weekend interleague series for the Tigers post retirement, between them and the Dodgers from August 18-20 earlier this year for FSD, and one game nationally for Fox Sports 1. 

For 60 years, Richard Alan “Dick” Enberg was an institution that we all were lucky enough to hear his voice behind the microphone of some of the most memorable moments in college, and professional sports. He won Emmys for his work, and above all, he was the reason that many of the commentators you see today on ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and in the California area. On top of being a Hall of Fame broadcaster, he was a Hall of Fame person. 

“Kindest, most proactive possible treatment of newcomers in this business, for the length of his career,” longtime sports, and political commentator Keith Olbermann said of Enberg Friday on Twitter. “What a terrible loss.”

He had the respect of not just the players he commentated or did essays on, but the respect of his peers, especially those who co-piloted many games with like Merlin Olsen, Al McGuire, Billy Packer, Don Drysdale, and Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. 

“If there was a Mount Rushmore of L.A. Sports Announcers, Dick Enberg is on it with Chick Hearn, Vin Scully, and Bob Miller. Rams, Angels, UCLA, NBC, and so much more. Was the first famous announcer I ever met, and he couldn’t have been nicer. Definition of a gentleman.” 

On Thursday, the sports world said goodbye to a legendary play-by-play announcer, but the echoes of his voice will live in the minds of sports fans, and all commentators across the globe for the rest of time. 

"My dream has taken me to a great place," Enberg said at his induction speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame two years ago. " 'Oh Doctor!' 'Oh My!' 'And How About That!'

Information, and quotations are courtesy of 12/22/17 ESPN Bottom Line news crawl at 3 p.m.; 12/22/17 www.nba.com article, “Longtime Sports Broadcaster Dick Enberg Dies at 82;” 12/22/17 “Famous Idaho Potatoes Bowl,” between Central Michigan Chippewas versus Wyoming Cowboys on ESPN with Roy Philpott, Tom Ramsey, and Alex Corddry; 12/23/17 7:30 p.m. edition of Los Angeles Clippers Live on Fox Sports Prime Ticket, presented by Carmax with Mike Hill, Bruce Bowen, and Jaime Maggio, with report from Mike Pomeranz; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Enberg; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Bowl_Game#Game_results;  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_the_Century_(college_basketball); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_University,_Northridge; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Away.