Joseph K. Starkey (born 1941) is an American sportscaster who has served as the

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

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 of

California Golden Bears football The California Golden Bears football program represents the University of California, Berkeley in college football as a member of the Pac-12 Conference at the NCAA Division I FBS level. The team plays its home games at California Memorial Stad ...

from 1975 to 2022. He previously worked as the sports director of

KGO radio KGO (810 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, and owned by Cumulus Media. KGO operates with 50,000 watts, the highest power permitted AM radio stations by the Federal Communications Commission, but use ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and play-by-play announcer for the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's Nationa ...

for 20 seasons from 1989 to 2008. Starkey is most famous for his frenetic call of The Play in the 1982 Big Game between Cal and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

: ''"Oh, the band is out on the field!"'' Starkey nearly lost his voice during and after this event, which he hailed as "the most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartrending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!"

Career

Starkey grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and briefly played football at

Thornton Junior College South Suburban College is a Public college, public community college in South Holland, Illinois. It has a second campus in Oak Forest, Illinois. History South Suburban College was founded in 1927 as Thornton Junior College. At that time, the co ...

. He attended

Loyola University Chicago Loyola University Chicago (Loyola or LUC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1870 by the Society of Jesus, Loyola is one of the largest Catholic universities in the United States. Its namesake is Saint Ignat ...

, graduating in 1964 with a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

and Master of Science in international relations in 1965. He has broadcast for the NFL's

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...

(1977) and

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...

, 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 ...

Oakland Invaders The Oakland Invaders were a professional American football team that played in the United States Football League (USFL) from 1983 through 1985. Based in Oakland, California, they played at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. The team can tra ...

and the first telecaster for the NHL's

San Jose Sharks The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference, and are owned by San Jose Sports & Entertain ...

. Starkey was also the radio and television voice of the now defunct National Hockey League's Oakland (later California Golden) Seals and

Colorado Rockies The Colorado Rockies are an American professional baseball team based in Denver. The Rockies compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. The team plays its home baseball games at Coors Fi ...

, who later became the

New Jersey Devils The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The Devils compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The club was founded as the Kan ...

. His trademark call, whenever the Seals scored a goal, was "What a bonanza!" It was the same call he carried into his football broadcasts to describe outlandish catches, notably by

Jerry Rice Jerry Lee Rice (born October 13, 1962) is an American former professional football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 20 seasons. Known primarily as a member of the San Francisco 49ers, winning three champion ...

and

Terrell Owens Terrell Eldorado Owens (; born December 7, 1973), nicknamed T.O., is an American football wide receiver for the Knights of Degen of Fan Controlled Football (FCF). He previously played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons. Regar ...

. Other previous assignments include the

Pittsburgh Penguins The Pittsburgh Penguins (colloquially known as the Pens) are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference, and have playe ...

of the NHL 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 for the NBA's

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...

and the University of California Golden Bears. On August 18, 2022, the University of California announced that Starkey would retire after the Golden Bears' 2022 season.

San Francisco 49ers

Prior to assuming play-by-play duties with the 49ers in

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...

he served as color analyst on 49ers radio broadcasts in

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

and

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 Bicenten ...

with the legendary

Lon Simmons Lonnie Alexander "Lon" Simmons (July 19, 1923 – April 5, 2015) was an American sports announcer, best known for his play-by-play broadcasts of San Francisco Giants baseball and San Francisco 49ers football. He was born in Vancouver, Washin ...

handling play-by-play. He also called the radio broadcasts of

Super Bowl XXIV Super Bowl XXIV was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion fo ...

and

Super Bowl XXIX Super Bowl XXIX was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion San Diego Chargers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champi ...

. He was involved in the radio call of several of the team's most famous moments. In addition to his

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

calls, the most famous of which would prove to be

Deion Sanders Deion Luwynn Sanders Sr. (born August 9, 1967) is an American football coach and former player who is the head coach at the University of Colorado Boulder. Nicknamed "Prime Time", he played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons ...

' out-of-bounds end-zone interception which ended Super Bowl XXIX, Starkey was play-by-play announcer for the 1998 club's two signature moments - Garrison Hearst's 96-yard touchdown in overtime against the

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The ...

and

Steve Young Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccane ...

's game-winning touchdown to

against 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) North division. It is the t ...

The Catch II The Catch II was the winning touchdown reception in a 1998 NFC Wild Card Game played between the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers at 3Com Park at Candlestick Point on January 3, 1999, as part of the 1998–99 NFL playoffs following the ...

. Starkey also broadcast San Francisco's 2002 playoff comeback against the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

. When the 49ers moved their broadcasts from KGO to rival station KNBR in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

, Starkey had to resign from KGO in order to continue his role with the 49ers. Starkey is still the broadcaster for the

Cal Bears The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Berkeley. Referred to in athletic competition as ''California'' or ''Cal'', the university fields 30 varsity athletic programs and various club te ...

on KGO radio indefinitely. On December 18, 2008, Starkey announced his retirement as the play-by-play announcer of the 49ers, citing difficulties with travel from Saturday Cal football games to Sunday 49ers games. In December 2010, The National Football Foundation honored him with "The

Chris Schenkel Christopher Eugene Schenkel (August 21, 1923 – September 11, 2005) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of five decades he called play-by-play for numerous sports on television and radio, becoming known for his smooth delivery and ...

Award" for his long and distinguished career broadcasting college football for the University of California at its annual awards dinner at the

Waldorf Astoria The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He was nine times voted Best California play-by-play broadcaster by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...

and was inducted into the

Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame The California Historical Radio Society ("CHRS') is a non-profit organization centered on the history of radio and radio broadcasting, including related technologies such as vintage TV, amateur radio and HiFi. The focus is on the history of early ...

in 2009. In 2016, he was inducted in the University of California Sports Hall of Fame.

Personal

Starkey and his wife Diane reside in the Bay Area. They have three sons and six grandchildren.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starkey, Joe 1940s births Living people American radio sports announcers California Golden Bears men's basketball announcers California Golden Bears football announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Denver Broncos announcers Golden State Warriors announcers Minnesota Vikings announcers National Basketball Association broadcasters National Football League announcers National Hockey League broadcasters New Jersey Devils announcers North American Soccer League (1968–1984) commentators Pittsburgh Penguins announcers Radio personalities from San Francisco San Francisco 49ers announcers San Jose Sharks announcers United States Football League announcers California Golden Seals announcers Colorado Rockies (NHL) announcers Loyola University Chicago alumni