Starkey Reminisces About His Half Century at Cal

It’s been a good run. An unprecedented run of 47 years. And now as the 2022 season approaches, a Golden Bear icon has decided to hang it up after calling Cal football games since 1975.

In characteristic Starkey style, the veteran broadcaster quipped that his retirement would be right after Cal’s appearance in the Rose Bowl, which last occurred 16 years before to took over the mic at Memorial, in 1959.

“My theory on this whole situation - I was really close to Bill Walsh when he was the head coach of the Niners,” said Starkey. “We talk about when he cut guys. His main mantra was, ‘Go home a year early. Cut him a year early. Trade him a year early rather than a year late. 

“My concern has always been that I didn’t want to be the guy that stayed a year too long and have people say, ‘Geez, he didn’t get that right.’

“I’ve had a heck of a run. I may already be the oldest guy play-by-play guy in the country for all I know. I still enjoy it but I think it’s time.”

The veteran broadcaster didn’t have designs on the job when he was first approached by former San Francisco 49er Monty Stickles about the job at the age of 33.

“It was kind of an unusual situation because I didn’t ask for the job,” said Starkey. “I was doing hockey for the (Oakland) Seals (NHL hockey team) and I was filling in at KGO occasionally for my buddy Monty Stickels who was the sports director at that point.

“I would do some shows for him and there was a guy who was doing Cal football in 73-74 they felt wasn’t really a play-by-play guy, so they just asked me if I would be interested in doing football and I said yes. They asked me how much football had I done and I said I’d done a lot of football. The only football I’d done was the Bears games. But I got the job in ‘75 and I remember on the very first road trip, the first game I ever went to with Cal, we played at Colorado.

“The sponsors always go with the charters and one of the sponsors came to me in the aisle while we were flying over there and he said, “You’re the fourth announcer in five years here. How long are you going to be here? And I said, “As long as I wanna be. So that’s where we are right now.”

That first season for Starkey was also an iconic season for the Golden Bears and was one of just two seasons where the program tied for the conference title.

“Mike White was an incredible guy,” said Starkey of the former Bears coach. “I helped him when he was the coach and he just welcomed me to the family as if I were and gave me everything I could possibly need for information. But what a team. That was a Rose Bowl-caliber team for sure but they lost to UCLA and that made the difference. It’s funny to think that Joe Roth was on that team and the great receivers on that team. There were so many outstanding players on that ‘75 team. Chuck Muncie was in his prime at Cal on that team, so that was a heck of a way to start to become the Cal football broadcaster.”

Starkey’s famous call of The Play, Cal’s iconic five-lateral touchdown culminating in the Bears’ Kevin Moen running through and over the Stanford band to secure a last-second victory over Stanford in the 1982 Big Game, is his calling card. Even casual fans are familiar with his overjoyed and incredulous, if not fully-descriptive call of the miraculous play.

“It’s amazing because people recognize it you wouldn't even think would,” said Starkey. “I have had amazing situations over the years. I think the funniest one was Joe Morgan, bless his heart would have a golf tournament for years over in the east bay. One year I was a so-called celebrity, which is stretching the term. But I was with 4 guys from Southern California and we got out on the golf course and one of the guys said, ‘You know, they’re supposed to put us with some kind of celebrity. Who are you? I don’t know anything about you.’ I said, ‘Okay, I will give you six words: The band is on the field.’ It worked. It’s everywhere. it’s an entrance to conversations. I’ve had people talk about it literally all over the world.”

Starkey was asked if he’s still asked about the play some 40 years after his famous call.

“Peaks and valleys,” said Starkey. “You probably get more of it when you get into the football season. When people start talking about football and the Bears and stuff like that, it comes up. At least a half a dozen times a year, someone wants to talk about it.”

With his 48^th and final season at the mic fast approaching, the veteran broadcaster is excited to go back to his roots for the Bears’ big road trip to South Bend this season but is also very wistful about the approaching disintegration of a rivalry spanning more than double his long radio career.

“Well certainly I am really excited about going to Notre Dame,” said Starkey. “I’m a southside Irish Catholic from Chicago, so I grew up as a Notre Dame fan. That will not be the case this time. But I love the whole idea we’re playing there, so I’m excited about that. And I got some bittersweet feelings just like many of you at the thought of the end of playing UCLA and USC. It’s awful and terrible. And hopefully, something can be done about both of them, at least about UCLA since they are a University of California school. So that would be a big deal for me, too.”

Out of the many teams the veteran announcer has covered in his nearly half-century at Cal, two teams rise to the forefront for Starkey.

“I think the Aaron Rodgers team that didn’t go to the Rose Bowl (in 2004 when Texas inexplicably jumped the Bears in the final poll after the Longhorns had a bye week) was an incredible football team. And Aaron’s (Rogers) ability to throw into traffic and find a way to win. We had good running backs...I mean we had so many good players on that team. That was a truly memorable team. And I also look back on that ‘75 team, my first team. That team was loaded with players.

“Some of them really do stand out more than others.”

Starkey also double-dipped for several years, covering the Bears on Saturday and the 49ers for 20 years on Sundays before going back to the college game full-time in  2009

“It was an approach-avoidance conflict,” said Starkey of moving on from the Niners. “I knew I couldn’t continue to do both teams. I still loved it enormously but it created some travel issues that were unbelievable. I couldn’t even do it today because in maybe the last 10 years, the new TV contracts have changed so much.

“When I was doing the dual role I knew Cal was going to play at 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon and I didn’t worry about it. Now that they’re playing at 7-8:00 at night, how do I get from the west coast to Green Bay overnight? You can’t do it. So my timing was good with that as I wouldn’t have been able to continue doing it either way.

“But I enjoyed my time with the 49ers enormously. I loved the people I worked with and everything about the coaches and the players. A lot of us are still very close. Gary Plummer for example played for Cal and was in the ‘82 Big Game and we ended up broadcasting with each other for the 49ers. So there is a lot of connection between the 2 teams.”

“Joe Starkey's commitment and service to Cal football have been unwavering for nearly a half-century," Cal's Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said. "I'm excited to celebrate and honor all of Joe's great work over the years and make 2022 his best season yet with the Bears. He will always have a home in Berkeley and with Cal football."  

"What an incredible career Joe Starkey has had over such a long period of time," said Cal head coach Justin Wilcox, who was born the year after Starkey began broadcasting Cal football games. "Joe's name is synonymous with the history of our football program. It's going to be a thrill to see him honored and recognized by so many who have enjoyed his work over the years." 

Starkey was asked if he had a message for the fans, which of course, he did. But Joe being Joe, he had to punctuate it with one of his favorite stories - a story that showed just how iconic his famous call from ‘82 was -not just for Cal fans but throughout the globe.

“Thank you for your incredible support,” was Starkey’s thoughts for Cal fans who have followed him over the years. “I am blown away sometimes when someone out of nowhere knows who I am and talks about Cal football and they’re excited to do it. It’s not that they’re excited to see me but it’s a conduit that they can talk about the team and tell stories and relate to them as fans.

“So I love that enormously but I guess my greatest story is…. This is the best story you’ll ever hear. Being the Cal football announcer, this is over 20 years ago, My wife and my youngest son got a trip to Europe. We’re going to Greece and Italy.  So the last stop is Rome and we’re staying in a hotel called the Cavalieri which overlooks the Vatican.

“It’s a very hot august afternoon and my wife and our then 11-year-old son don’t want to go to the pool because it was hot. They just wanted to go take a nap so I go down to the pool and pull out a book and in about 5 minutes the entire Rolling Stones band joins me at the pool.

Everyone there is with their wives and just by coincidence, Charlie Watts sits down next to me and we start talking and I asked him about the tour and to this day I can’t believe I didn’t ask for tickets because they were playing a concert that night.

“He said on this very hot afternoon, ‘Mate, you want to go into the pool?’ I said, ‘Great idea.’ So we go into the pool. We’re in the shallow end of the pool and we’re just standing there, trying to cool off. And so help me God, as bizarre as this is...Do you remember a show called the Incredible Hulk? Lou Ferrigno jumps into the pool.

“So I have Lou Ferrigno to my left, I’ve got a Rolling Stone on my right and I’m in the middle. A guy jumps into the pool from the other end and he looks us over. And Charlie says, ‘They’ll bother you everywhere, won’t they?’ And he uses some salty language. So the guy comes up to the three of us and says, ‘Aren’t you the Cal football announcer?”’

What a bonanza!

We’ll miss you, Joe.