Lon McEachern (pronounced the same as "McCarran", born ) is an American

sports commentator In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

most known for his hand-by-hand commentary of the

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker pl ...

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 ...

. He is known as the "voice of poker".

Early life and education

McEachern was born in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...

, one of four children. His family later relocated to the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

and McEachern was raised in Corte Madera in

Marin County Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...

until the age of 19. He attended Redwood High School and played baseball while a student. He was teammates with future MLB shortstop

Buddy Biancalana Roland Americo "Buddy" Biancalana Jr. (; born February 2, 1960) is a retired Major League Baseball (MLB) shortstop. Biancalana played for two teams in his career: the Kansas City Royals (–) and Houston Astros (). Biography Biancalana was bor ...

in his senior year and graduated in 1975. McEachern attended

Santa Barbara City College Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) is a public community college in Santa Barbara, California. It opened in 1909 and is located on a campus. History Santa Barbara City College was established by the Santa Barbara High School District in 1909, ma ...

and was a baseball teammate of future-MLB player

Jesse Orosco Jesse Russell Orosco (born April 21, 1957) is a Mexican American former relief pitcher in Major League Baseball who holds the major league record for career pitching appearances, having pitched in 1,252 games. He pitched most notably for the New ...

. He later attended the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

and graduated in 1980 with a B.A. in communications. While enrolled at UC Santa Barbara, he worked at the campus radio station

KCSB-FM KCSB-FM (91.9 FM) is a non-commercial, educational radio station located on the UC Santa Barbara campus. KCSB is designed to be educational for both programmers and listeners. UCSB students and other programmers are provided an opportunity to lear ...

Career

Out of college, McEachern worked radio at

KTMS KTMS (990 AM, "News Talk AM 990") is a commercial radio station in Santa Barbara, California. It is owned by Rincon Broadcasting and airs a talk radio format. KTMS is simulcast on FM translator station K250BS at 97.9 MHz, licensed to Solimar ...

, the former home of another UCSB graduate in

Jim Rome James Phillip Rome (born October 14, 1964) is an American sports radio host. His talk show, ''The Jim Rome Show'', is syndicated by CBS Sports Radio. Broadcasting from a studio near Los Angeles, California, Rome hosts ''The Jim Rome Show'' on ...

, before entering the television industry with

KCOY-TV KCOY-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Santa Maria, California, United States, serving the Central Coast of California as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Dabl. It is owned by VistaWest Media, LLC, which maintains a ...

. He moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1990s to work at

KGO-TV KGO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's ABC network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, KGO-TV ma ...

and

KPIX-TV KPIX-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's CBS network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside C ...

. He also freelanced for

, including covering play-by-play of the

X Games The X Games are an annual extreme sports event organized, produced and broadcast by ESPN. Coverage is also shown on ESPN's sister network, ABC. The inaugural X Games were held during the summer of 1995 in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, ...

. By 2002, McEachern had left the television industry. In 2002, ESPN reached out to McEachern, who was working as a mortgage banker at the time, to cover poker. He was brought back in 2003 alongside

Norman Chad Norman A. Chad (born 1958) is an American sportswriter, poker player and syndicated columnist who is seen on the sports channel ESPN. He also was an occasional guest host on the ESPN show ''Pardon the Interruption'' and has appeared as both ho ...

for the

2003 World Series of Poker The 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at Binion's Horseshoe. Preliminary events Main Event There were 839 entrants to the main event. Each paid $10,000 to enter what was the largest poker tournament ever played in a brick and mortar ca ...

. The tournament was won by

Chris Moneymaker Christopher Bryan Moneymaker (born November 21, 1975) is an American poker player who won the Main Event at the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP). His 2003 win is said to have revolutionized poker because he was the first person to become a wo ...

and led to the

Moneymaker effect The Moneymaker effect is the name of the sudden growth in interest in poker after the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event. History The term was created after Chris Moneymaker, a 27-year-old accountant and amateur poker player from Tennessee, ...

and a corresponding surge in poker's popularity. McEachern continued as a mortgage banker for nearly five years, doing poker coverage for ESPN on the side. As of 2017, he has covered every World Series of Poker main event since ESPN acquired the broadcasting rights. McEachern also covered play-by-play of the

PBA Tour The PBA Tour is the major professional tour for ten-pin bowling, operated by the Professional Bowlers Association. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, over 3,000 members worldwide make up the PBA. While most of the PBA members are Regional profess ...

during the 2012–13 season alongside color analyst Randy Pedersen. In 2007 McEachern was the commentator for Pride 33 along with fighters Frank Trigg and Josh Barnett.

Personal life

McEachern married Carol Czyzewski, a fellow UC Santa Barbara alumna, in 1981 and has two children. His nephew, Matthew Wood, is a sound engineer for

Skywalker Sound Skywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of Lucasfilm. Founded in 1975, the company's main facilities are located at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Lucas Valley, near Nicas ...

and has worked on numerous Star Wars films.

References

External links

ESPN biography
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Lon McEachern Interview (audio + transcript)
{{DEFAULTSORT:McEachern, Lon Living people Poker commentators University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Year of birth missing (living people) People from Memphis, Tennessee People from Corte Madera, California People from Santa Clara, California Bowling broadcasters Redwood High School (Larkspur, California) alumni