Ray Eugene Scott (June 17, 1919 – March 23, 1998) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

sportscaster, best known for his broadcasts for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League. His brother

Hal Scott Harold Dwight Scott (July 8, 1923 – September 21, 2010) was an American sportscaster. He worked primarily at Minneapolis's television station WCCO-TV in 1960s and 1970s. He also worked for CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to ...

was also a sportscaster.

Early life and career

A native of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Scott began his broadcasting career on local radio in the late 1930s. (Fellow announcer

Bill McColgan William J. McColgan (died April 30, 1973) was an American sportscaster. A native of Boston, McColgan graduated from St. Margaret's School and South Boston High School. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he attended Curry College ...

, in his introduction of Scott for the radio broadcast of the

1957 NFL Championship Game The 1957 NFL Championship Game was the 25th annual championship game, held on December 29 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Michigan. The Detroit Lions (8–4), winners of the Western Conference, hosted the Cleveland Browns (9–2–1), champions ...

, stated that Scott started broadcasting when he was only 17 years old.) Following a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II, he moved to Pittsburgh, where he did play-by-play for

Carnegie Tech Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technol ...

and University of Pittsburgh football and

Duquesne University Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit ( or ; Duquesne University or Duquesne) is a private Catholic research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened as the Pittsb ...

basketball.

Green Bay Packers and CBS Sports

Scott's first NFL broadcasts came in

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yugosl ...

over the DuMont network; three years later he began doing play-by-play on Packers broadcasts for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

,"Ray Scott, 78, Voice of Packers During Glory Seasons in the 60's," ''The New York Times'', Sunday, March 29, 1998.
/ref> Scott was paired primarily with

Tony Canadeo Anthony Robert Canadeo (May 5, 1919 – November 29, 2003) was a professional American football player who played as a back in the National Football League (NFL) for the Green Bay Packers from 1941 to 1952, having missed most of the 1944 season a ...

on Packers telecasts. As the team's play-by-play announcer, Scott broadcast

Super Bowl I The first AFL–NFL World Championship Game (known retroactively as Super BowlI and referred to in contemporaneous reports, including the game's radio broadcast, as the Super Bowl) was an American football game played on January 15, 1967, at the ...

and II for CBS, along with the brutally cold " Ice Bowl" NFL championship game of

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...

. It was during this period that his terse, minimalist style (e.g. : " Starr . . . Dowler . . . Touchdown, Green Bay!") developed its greatest following. It also earned him a reputation as the "King of Understatement". Scott was also known for only occasionally using team names while broadcasting, more often identifying them by their city. In

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

, CBS ended its practice of assigning dedicated announcing crews to particular teams. Scott became the play-by-play announcer on CBS' lead NFL broadcast team. He was partnered with

Paul Christman Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

in 1968 and 1969 and Pat Summerall from 1970 to 1973. During his tenure with CBS he called four Super Bowls, seven NFL (later NFC) championship games, and the

1961 Orange Bowl The 1961 Orange Bowl was the 27th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, on Monday, January 2. Part of the 1960–61 bowl game season, the fifth-ranked Missouri Tigers of the Big Eight Confe ...

; he also called major college bowl games for

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are ...

during this period.

Baseball broadcasting

Scott was the lead television and radio announcer for Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins from to , calling the

1965 World Series The 1965 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1965 season. The 62nd edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff that matched the National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers against the Ame ...

television alongside

Vin Scully Vincent Edward Scully (November 29, 1927 – August 2, 2022) was an American sportscaster. He was best known for his 67 seasons calling games for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, beginning in 1950 (when the franchise was located i ...

, the voice of the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brookl ...

. Scott's famous minimalist style was evident in his call of

Lou Johnson Louis Brown Johnson (September 22, 1934 – October 1, 2020), nicknamed Sweet Lou, was an American Major League Baseball outfielder. Johnson's professional baseball career lasted for 17 seasons, and included 8 years in the majors: parts of 1960� ...

's home run that broke a scoreless tie and proved to be the game winner ("Kaat's pitch, uh-oh, it's a long fly down the left field line. Home run"). After Sandy Koufax struck out his tenth hitter for the final out of the series, Scott stated "every pitcher likes to end a game with a strikeout. But this was not just any game. It was the 7th game of the World Series." After leaving Minnesota he called games for the Washington Senators in 1970–71 before returning to the Twins as a part-time announcer in 1973–75. Scott 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) Central division. The Brewers are named for the city's association wi ...

telecasts in 1976–77.

Later life and career

CBS dismissed Scott in

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...

, replacing him with his color commentator, Summerall. He was subsequently employed as a local radio announcer by the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...

(1974–75),

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South divisio ...

(1976–77), and Minnesota Vikings (1978–82). Scott also served as a narrator for the '' NFL Films Game of the Week'' in the 1970s and called play-by-play of Phoenix Suns basketball in 1974–75, syndicated broadcasts of Penn State football from 1975–81, the

USFL The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...

Arizona Wranglers The Arizona Wranglers were a professional American Football team in the United States Football League that, name-wise, existed from late 1982 to mid-1985. They played at Sun Devil Stadium on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, a su ...

in 1983 and 1984, and the Portland Breakers in the 1985 season. In

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicentenn ...

, Scott was one of several veteran announcers to call some September NFL telecasts for

, while many of the network's regular broadcasters were working at that year's Summer Olympics in Seoul. Scott also called

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, Arizona,

Arizona State Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the U ...

, Minnesota, and Nebraska football in the '80s; broadcast

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athle ...

and

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping w ...

at various points in his career; and teamed with Patrick Ryan while doing high school and college football in and around

Billings, Montana Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Met ...

. From 1986 to 1988, he called the annual

Peach Bowl The Peach Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played in Atlanta, Georgia since December 1968. Since 1997, it has been sponsored by Chick-fil-A and is officially known as the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. From 2006 to 2013, it was officially ref ...

game for the

Mizlou Television Network Mizlou Television Network, Inc. or Mizlou Communications, Inc., is a former sports broadcast television network. It was active from 1962 to 1991, and in 1992 it was re-established as Mizlou Television Network, Inc., which is now based in Tampa, ...

; at the same time, he was a sportscaster at KTVK in Phoenix, having wintered in Arizona since 1968. In the later years of his life he hosted a syndicated talk show on the short-lived SportsAmerica Radio Network. In addition to sportscasting, Scott also read newscasts at

WCCO-FM KMNB (102.9 MHz, "The Wolf") is an American commercial FM radio station in Minneapolis-St. Paul that carries a country radio format. KMNB is owned by Audacy, Inc. Its main transmitter is located on the KMSP Tower in Shoreview, Minnesota, with b ...

in Minneapolis in the late 1970s and early '80s. He also broadcast Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota in the late 1980s and thru the 1990s. Scott died in 1998 at age 78 in Minneapolis following a long illness. He was survived by his second wife, Bonnie, and his first wife, Eda and their five children.

Awards and honors

Scott was twice named National Sportscaster of the Year by the

National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association 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 ...

, was given regional awards by that organization 12 times in four different states, and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1982. Posthumous honors include induction into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1998, receipt of the

Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award The Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, created in 1989 and named for the late longtime NFL commissioner, Pete Rozelle, is bestowed annually by the Pro Football Hall of Fame "for longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in profes ...

from the

Pro Football Hall of Fame The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coac ...

in 2000, and induction into the

Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combina ...

as a contributor in July 2001. Scott was ranked 28th in the American Sportscasters Association's list of the Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time in 2009. His bare-bones style has inspired many sportscasters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Ray 1919 births 1998 deaths United States Army personnel of World War II American Basketball Association announcers American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Golf writers and broadcasters Green Bay Packers announcers High school basketball announcers in the United States High school football announcers in the United States Kansas City Chiefs announcers Major League Baseball broadcasters Milwaukee Brewers announcers Minnesota Twins announcers Minnesota Vikings announcers National Basketball Association broadcasters National Football League announcers National Hockey League broadcasters People from Johnstown, Pennsylvania Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award recipients Phoenix Suns announcers Pittsburgh Panthers football announcers Tampa Bay Buccaneers announcers United States Football League announcers Washington Senators (1961–1971) announcers