Mark Neely is an American sportscaster. He currently serves as a

play-by-play 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 ...

announcer for ''

ESPN College Football ''ESPN College Football'' is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football across ESPN properties, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN+, ABC, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPNews and ESPN Radio. ''ESPN College ...

'', '' College Basketball on ESPN'' and '' NBA on ESPN'' and was previously a television announcer for San Diego Padres baseball.

Biography

Education

Neely attended 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 ...

and the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

graduating from KU.

Early career

Neely served as a radio and television play-by-play voice for a number of Minor League teams, including the Boise Hawks,

Springfield (IL) Cardinals Springfield may refer to: * Springfield (toponym), the place name in general Places and locations Australia * Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast) * Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council) * Springfield, Queenslan ...

, Salem Avalanche, Louisville Redbirds, and

Tulsa Drillers The Tulsa Drillers are a minor league baseball team based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The team, which plays in the Texas League, is the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers major-league club. Stadium The Drillers play at ONEOK Field (pronounc ...

ESPN

Neely's first network television assignment came for

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 ...

TV calling

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

in 2001. He added other sports for the network including college football and college basketball while also calling NCAA Regionals and NCAA Super Regionals in college baseball and softball. In 2006 and 2007, Neely was the play-by-play announcer for the NCAA Men's & Women's Swimming & Diving National Championships. Neely has also called a number of college football bowl games for

2010 New Orleans Bowl The 2010 New Orleans Bowl was the tenth edition of the New Orleans Bowl. The game was played at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, on Saturday, December 18, 2010, at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. The contest was televised live on ESPN. The ...

2012 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl The 2012 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, the 16th edition of the game, was a post-season American college football bowl game that was held on December 26, 2012 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan as part of the 2012–13 NCAA football bowl season. Th ...

2014 New Mexico Bowl The 2014 New Mexico Bowl was a college football bowl game that was played on December 20, 2014 at University Stadium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The ninth annual New Mexico Bowl, it pitted the Utah State Aggies of the Mountain West Conference agai ...

2014 Quick Lane Bowl The 2014 Quick Lane Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game between the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and the North Carolina Tar Heels played on December 26, 2014, at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. It was the first edition of the Quick La ...

2015 Celebration Bowl The 2015 Celebration Bowl (officially known as the 2015 Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl) was a post-season American college football bowl game played on December 19, 2015 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. The inaugural Celebration Bowl ...

, and the

2015 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl The 2015 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl was a college football bowl game that was played on December 22, 2015 at Albertsons Stadium on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. It was one of the 2015–16 bowl games that concluded the 2015 ...

on ESPN TV - and the

2010 Chick-fil-A Bowl The 2010 Chick-fil-A Bowl was a college football bowl game played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 31, 2010, with kickoff at 7:30 p.m. EST. With sponsorship from Chick-fil-A, it was the 43rd edition of the game known thro ...

, 2011 &

2012 New Mexico Bowl The 2012 Gildan New Mexico Bowl was a post-season American college football bowl game that was held on December 15, 2012, at Dreamstyle Stadium, University Stadium on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerq ...

2012 BBVA Compass Bowl The 2012 BBVA Compass Bowl, the sixth edition of the game, was a post-season American college football bowl game, held on January 7, 2012, at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama, as part of the 2011–12 NCAA Bowl season. The game, which was tele ...

2012 Alamo Bowl The 2012 Valero Alamo Bowl, the 20th edition of the game, was a postseason college football bowl game between the Texas Longhorns and the Oregon State Beavers at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, held on December 29, 2012 at 5:45 p.m. ...

2013 Armed Forces Bowl The 2013 Armed Forces Bowl was an American college football bowl game that was played on December 30, 2013, at Amon G. Carter Stadium on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. The eleventh edition of the Armed Forces Bow ...

, 2014 & 2016 Liberty Bowl,

2014 Music City Bowl The 2014 Music City Bowl was an American college football bowl game played on December 30, 2014 at LP Field in Nashville, Tennessee. The 17th edition of the Music City Bowl began at approximately 2:00 p.m. CST and was broadcast nationally b ...

, and

2015 Cactus Bowl The 2015 Cactus Bowl was an American college football bowl game that was played on January 2, 2015, at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. It was one of the 2014–15 bowl games that concluded the 2014 FBS football season. The game started at 1 ...

on ESPN Radio.

Big Ten Network

In 2007, Neely was hired by Fox's

Big Ten Network Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American sports network based in Chicago, Illinois. The channel is dedicated to coverage of collegiate sports sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference, including live and recorded event telecasts, news, analysis programs, ...

to call

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 ...

sports such as

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 ...

and

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 ...

ESPN Little League Baseball

Neely has called

Little League Baseball Little League Baseball and Softball (officially, Little League Baseball Inc) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization 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 ...

since 2001. In 2010-2014 he called the

West Region Western Region or West Region may refer to: Places *Al Gharbia, Abu Dhabi, the Western Region *Western Region, Bahrain *Western Region, Eastern Cape, South Africa *Western Region, Ghana *Western Region (Iceland) *Western Region, Nepal *Western Regi ...

and Northwest Regional Semifinals and Finals for

along with Aaron Boone. In 2015, Neely broadcast those same regions along with Dallas Braden and in 2016 with

Raul Ibanez Raul, Raúl and Raül are the Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Asturian, Basque, Aragonese, and Catalan forms of the Anglo-Germanic given name Ralph or Rudolph. They are cognates of the French Raoul. Raul, Raúl or Raül may re ...

San Diego Padres

In 2009, Neely replaced Matt Vasgersian as the lead play-by-play voice for San Diego Padres telecasts on

4SD YurView California (formerly known as 4SD, Channel 4 San Diego or unofficially COX 4, and originally known as KCOX) is an American cable television channel serving San Diego, California, owned by Cox Communications, which carries the channel pri ...

, while in 2010-11 he was the team's secondary TV announcer behind

Dick Enberg Richard Alan Enberg (January 9, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of an approximately 60-year career, he provided play-by-play of various sports for several radio and television networks, including N ...

Personal life

Neely and his wife Christine have a son Trevor, born in 2002. Mark is a native of

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, and a graduate of Parkway West High School, the same school that produced fellow broadcasters

Stone Phillips Stone Stockton Phillips (born December 2, 1954) is an American television reporter and correspondent. He is best known as the former co-anchor of ''Dateline NBC'', a news magazine TV series. He also has worked as a substitute anchor for ''NBC N ...

and

Chip Caray Harry Christopher "Chip" Caray III (born February 27, 1965) is an American television broadcaster for Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast's coverage of the Atlanta Braves baseball. Chip is also known from his time as a broadcaster for ...

References

External links

* http://mlb.mlb.com/team/broadcasters.jsp?c_id=sd Padres Broadcasters {{DEFAULTSORT:Neely, Mark Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American television sports announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Softball announcers Major League Baseball broadcasters Minor League Baseball broadcasters College baseball announcers in the United States People from St. Louis San Diego Padres announcers University of Missouri alumni University of Kansas alumni