William Joseph Raftery (born April 19, 1943) is an American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

analyst and former college basketball coach.

High school and college years

Raftery attended Saint Cecilia High School in

Kearny, New Jersey Kearny ( ) is a town in the western part of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States and a suburb of Newark. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town's population was 40,684, a record finally surpassed after 35 years. He earned all-state honors in basketball and led his team to the state championship in his senior season. He was also named all-state in baseball and soccer. He has been named, retroactively,

Mr. Basketball USA Mr. Basketball USA, formerly known as the ''ESPN RISE'' National Player of the Year and EA SPORTS National Player of the Year, is an award presented to the United States boys' high school basketball national player of the year by Ballislife.com ...

for 1959. Raftery played at

La Salle University La Salle University () is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. History La ...

under coach Donald "Dudey" Moore. During his freshman year he scored a freshman record 370 points, followed by a team leading 17.8 points per game in his sophomore year. As a senior, he co-captained the Explorers to the

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played at regional sites and traditionally at Madison Square Garden (Final Four) in New York City ...

. Following his senior year at La Salle, Raftery was selected in the 14th round (82nd overall) of the 1963 NBA draft by the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

but never played in the NBA.

Coaching career

Raftery began his coaching career at Fairleigh Dickinson University at Madison (now in

Florham Park, New Jersey Florham Park is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 11,696,Seton Hall University Seton Hall University (SHU) is a private Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Seton Hall is the oldest diocesan un ...

, where he posted a 154–141 record and led the Pirates to four ECAC post-season tournaments and two National Invitational Tournament appearances. In 1979, he was named Coach of the Year by the New Jersey Sports Writers Association. His 154 wins as a coach places him fifth on the all-time list at Seton Hall behind

Honey Russell John David "Honey" Russell (May 31, 1902 – November 15, 1973) was an American basketball player and coach who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1964. He turned professional after his sophomore year of high scho ...

P.J. Carlesimo Peter John Carlesimo (born May 30, 1949) is an American basketball coach who coached in both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and college basketball for nearly 40 years. He is also a television broadcaster, having worked with ESPN, ''The ...

, Frank Hill, and

Kevin Willard Kevin Schreiber Willard (born April 6, 1975) is an American college basketball coach and the current head men's basketball coach at the University of Maryland. Willard played basketball at Western Kentucky during the 1992–93 season (his freshm ...

Head coaching record

Broadcasting career

Raftery has served as an analyst and color commentator for

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W 5 ...

' college basketball coverage since 1983. During CBS' coverage of ''

March Madness The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...

'', Raftery frequently partnered with

Verne Lundquist Merton Laverne Lundquist Jr. (born July 17, 1940) is an American sportscaster. Biography Early life and career Lundquist was born in Duluth, Minnesota. He graduated from Austin High School in Austin, Texas, before attending Texas Lutheran U ...

. Starting with the 2014–15 collegiate basketball season, CBS/

Turner Sports Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (WBD Sports) is the division of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) that is responsible for sports broadcasting, sports broadcasts on its parent company's various channels in the United States, including TBS (American TV ch ...

partnered Raftery with

Jim Nantz James William Nantz III (born May 17, 1959) is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League (NFL), NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has ancho ...

and Grant Hill to make up the primary announcing team for the remainder of the regular season, all the way through the NCAA men's basketball tournament and the Final Four. Raftery was also an analyst with

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, primarily partnered with

Sean McDonough Sean McDonough (born May 13, 1962) is an American sportscaster, currently employed by ESPN and WEEI Red Sox Radio Network. Early life The son of ''Boston Globe'' sportswriter Will McDonough, McDonough graduated from the S. I. Newhouse Sch ...

and

Jay Bilas Jay Scot Bilas (born December 24, 1963) is an American college basketball analyst who currently works for ESPN. Bilas is a former professional basketball player and coach who played for and served as an assistant under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke Uni ...

and formerly

Mike Gorman Michael Gorman (born November 24, 1945) is an American television play-by-play commentator for the Boston Celtics on NBC Sports Boston. Gorman also did play-by-play, alongside Fran Fraschilla, for NBC for basketball games during the 2016 Summ ...

for

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

games. He has served as an analyst for

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

Westwood One Westwood One is an American radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and ...

's coverage of the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Men's Final Four along with

Kevin Kugler Kevin Kugler is an American sportscaster who primarily works in radio broadcasting. Kugler is currently employed by Westwood One as its lead college basketball voice as well as one of its Sunday NFL voices, and by the Big Ten Network as a play-by- ...

and John Thompson. Raftery was also the lead analyst for the

New Jersey Nets New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

(prior to the franchise's move to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

) for over 20 years until 2002 and was an on-course commentator for

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

Champions Tour events. Raftery while at CBS also worked as an analyst for select NBA games, paired with Brent Musburger and Dick Stockton. On June 27, 2013, Raftery signed with

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

to call Big East basketball games on the upstart network

Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports 2 ...

with Gus Johnson. His trademark quotes include: "Onions!" (when a shot is made late in a close game), "Send it in big fella!" (when a post player makes a slam dunk), "With a little kiss!" (when a shot banks in, usually in a nonstandard way), "A little nickel-dimer!" (when a light foul is called), "Get the puppies organized!" (in reference to good footwork), and "A little lingerie on the deck!" (when a player makes a nifty move with the ball and fakes out the defender). Another phrase Raftery is known for is "Man-to-man!", which he announces very fast and excitedly at the start of most games.Rolling Stone - April 2, 2015 He is especially remembered for "Send It In, Jerome!", his call immediately after

Jerome Lane Jerome Lane Sr. (born December 4, 1966) is an American former professional basketball player who played six seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Lane played college basketball for the University of Pittsburgh, where he was an All ...

of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

shattered the backboard with a powerful dunk during a 1988 game.

Awards and honors

*2006

Curt Gowdy Media Award The Curt Gowdy Media Award is an annual award given by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to outstanding basketball writers and broadcasters. It is named for American sportscaster Curt Gowdy, who was the Hall of Fame's president for ...

NSSA Hall of Fame The National Sports Media Association (NSMA), formerly the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, is an organization of sports media members in the United States, and constitutes the American chapter of the International Sports Pr ...

inductee (class of 2015) *Four-time

Sports Emmy Award The Sports Emmy Awards, or Sports Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), the Sports E ...

winner for Outstanding Sports Event Analyst

Other ventures

Aside from his commentating duties, Raftery was also the president of W.J. Raftery Associates, an event/marketing firm.

Personal life

Born William Joseph Raftery in

Orange, New Jersey The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 30,134, reflecting a decline of 2,734 (−8.3%) from the 32,868 counted in 2000. Orange was original ...

, Bill Raftery grew up in an Irish Catholic family with Irish immigrant parents. His sister is a nun. Raftery earned a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in history from La Salle University in 1963 and an M.A.E. in education from Seton Hall University in 1966. In 2001, he received an honorary doctorate from La Salle. Raftery lives in

Florham Park, New Jersey Florham Park is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 11,696, His son, Billy, produced and narrated a documentary about his father's life in basketball entitled ''With a Kiss''. The documentary premiered hours before the longtime broadcaster called his second Final Four as a television analyst for

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raftery, Bill 1943 births Living people American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players American television sports announcers Basketball coaches from New Jersey Basketball players from New Jersey College basketball announcers in the United States College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Golf writers and broadcasters La Salle Explorers men's basketball players National Basketball Association broadcasters New Jersey Nets announcers New York Knicks draft picks Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) People from Florham Park, New Jersey People from Orange, New Jersey Seton Hall Pirates men's basketball coaches Seton Hall University alumni Guards (basketball)