Neil Funk (born December 29, 1946) is the former

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

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 the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

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

Education and career

Funk grew up in Indianapolis and attended Syracuse University, graduating in 1969. His first

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting beg ...

job was covering

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

and college sports for a small radio station in

Danville, Illinois Danville is a city in and the county seat of Vermilion County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, its population was 33,027. As of 2019, the population was an estimated 30,479. History The area that is now Danville was once home to the Miami, K ...

. He quickly moved up the ranks to acquire a job with the Philadelphia 76ers' WIBG-radio broadcasting crew in 1976. After time broadcasting for the

Kansas City Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference Pacific Division ( ...

, Funk began doing television broadcasts for the Sixers in 1982. Partnering with Steve Mix, he won an Emmy Award in 1989. Funk joined the Chicago Bulls as a

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 transmi ...

play-by-play announcer in 1991. On May 6, 2008, it was announced that Funk would replace

Tom Dore Tom Dore is a retired American basketball player and former Comcast SportsNet play-by-play announcer for the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls. A native of Northlake, Illinois, the 7'2" (218 cm) Dore played basketball at East ...

(

Comcast Sportsnet NBC Sports Regional Networks is the collective name for a group of regional sports networks in the United States that are primarily owned and operated by the NBCUniversal division of the cable television company Comcast. The networks were origin ...

) and

Wayne Larrivee Wayne Larrivee is an American sportscaster. Larrivee is currently the radio play-by-play voice of the Green Bay Packers on the Packers Radio Network alongside color commentator Larry McCarren and calls college football and basketball for the Bi ...

( WGN-TV) as the play-by-play man for Chicago Bulls games on television. In October, 2019, it was announced that Funk would retire after the 2019–20 season, his 29th with the team.

Quotes

Funk is known for using his signature phrase "Ka-Boom!" whenever a Bulls player hits a three-point shot. He is also well known for his dramatic call "Bang, down the well it goes!" A typical sampling of Funk's play-by-play call: "Dennis inbounds to Scottie, who brings the ball up. Pippen across the timeline with Stockton on ''him''. Scottie left side for Michael. Michael backing Russell, backing, backing now swings it down to Luc. Over to Scottie with 10 on the 24. Scottie to Steve Kerr for three—''ka''-boom!" Funk once said while announcing a Sixers game “Cheeks to Barkley Barkley back to Cheeks. Cheeks-twisting, turning, wheeling, dealing, hanging, firing, scoring.”

Other activities

Funk was featured as the play-by-play announcer for the 1996 Midway Games arcade game ''

NBA Hangtime ''NBA Hangtime'' is a 1996 basketball arcade game developed and released by Midway. Home versions were released for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Super NES, Sega Genesis, and Microsoft Windows. A version for Game.com was announced, but cancelle ...

''. Among many NBA players of the time and members of the game's development team, Funk is accessible as a hidden character by using the name NFUNK along with pin 0101.

Personal life

Funk is married to his wife Renee and has one son named William. He currently lives in Chicago.

Notes

External links

Profile
a
bulls.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Funk, Neil 1946 births Living people Chicago Bulls announcers National Basketball Association broadcasters New Jersey Nets announcers Philadelphia 76ers announcers Sacramento Kings announcers Syracuse University alumni Park Tudor School alumni