Jim Irwin (February 7, 1934 – January 22, 2012) was a longtime sportscaster at WTMJ Radio in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

. He is probably best known as having been the radio voice of the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

for 30 years.

Career

Irwin worked with former Packer

Lionel Aldridge Lionel Aldridge (February 14, 1941 – February 12, 1998) was an American professional football player,''Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League.'' New York: HarperCollins, 1999. 553. a defensive end in the Nat ...

, and was paired for 20 seasons with Super Bowl I hero

Max McGee William Max McGee (July 16, 1932 – October 20, 2007) was a professional football player, a wide receiver and punter for the Green Bay Packers in the NFL. He played from 1954 to 1967, and is best known for his seven receptions for 138 yards a ...

. Irwin also called

Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division. The Brewers are named for t ...

baseball,

Milwaukee Bucks The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded in 1968 ...

basketball, and Wisconsin Badgers

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and

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 ...

games. He joined the Packers radio broadcasts as a

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and t ...

in 1969 and assumed play by play duties in 1975, a position he held until his retirement after the 1998 season, along with morning sportscasting and commentary duties on WTMJ's morning program. He was inducted into the

Packers Hall of Fame The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. It is the th ...

in 2003. Irwin continued to contribute occasionally to WTMJ after he retired. Prior to his longtime career as the voice of the Packers, Irwin began his broadcast career in 1964 as sports director at

WLUK-TV WLUK-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Suring-licensed CW affiliate WCWF (channel 14). Both stations share studi ...

in Green Bay.

Early life and death

He was born in

Linn Creek, Missouri Linn Creek is a city in Camden County, Missouri, United States. The population was 216 at the 2020 census. The original Linn Creek, which was the original county seat of Camden County, Missouri, is now under water, in the Lake of the Ozarks. C ...

. Irwin served in the U.S. Army in Korea and then enrolled at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

, where he majored in speech. Irwin died of complications from kidney cancer on January 22, 2012, at the age of 77.

References

External links

1934 births 2012 deaths American color commentators American radio sports announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Deaths from kidney cancer Green Bay Packers announcers Major League Baseball broadcasters Military personnel from Missouri Milwaukee Brewers announcers Milwaukee Bucks announcers National Basketball Association broadcasters National Football League announcers People from Camden County, Missouri United States Army soldiers University of Missouri alumni Wisconsin Badgers football announcers {{US-radio-bio-stub