In Cal’s weekly press conference Tuesday, veteran Cal broadcaster Joe Starkey was called upon to reflect on his 48 years as lead announcer calling Cal football games heading into his final Big Game weekend Saturday at Memorial Stadium as he fielded questions from the media.
It was a fitting part of Starkey’s final season with Cal to have a chance to call a game against his childhood favorite team, Notre Dame -especially in South Bend, Indiana.
““As a south-side Irishman, my college team growing up was the Irish, period,” noted Starkey. “From Terry Brennan or whoever was the coach when I was just a kid, there was no doubt all we wanted to see the Irish win, see Notre Dame win a game. I only saw them once in person ever ironically before we played them last year and unfortunately, it was the day they beat the heck out of Cal way back in 1967. So the opportunity to end up in this business is pretty amazing.
“The timing was really great because I haven’t been there in literally 50 years and so doing a game back there even though I will never believe Notre Dame won that game legitimately. That official definitely blew the call (on the phantom field goal offsides call that took a Notre Dame miss off the board and allowed them to score a TD instead). But it was great fun to be a part of that and that’s the great thing about college football. I mean we get to go to so many places that are so wonderful. We went to Georgia in the Herschel Walker era, and by the way, I am not cheering for him in the congress for Georgia. But I had all these great opportunities to do football games all over the country and all over the world. Cal played in Tokyo for heaven’s sake. There are not a lot of college teams that get to play overseas. So I think the experiences I have had at home and on the road with this university, the people who run it, the athletic director, the coaches, the players, the staff… It’s been fantastic and I love everything about it.”
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Starkey and Cal head coach Justin Wilcox before the season
Little did Starkey know that just eight seasons into his long career at Cal he’d make one of the most iconic and ironically enough, unintelligible calls in the history of collegiate sports with his breathless account of The Play in Cal’s stunning last-second win over Stanford in 1982. The scene was chaotic and like the fans in the stands, Starkey was left trying to sort out exactly what he was witnessing in the 5-lateral touchdown that shocked the world for its unlikely execution and success.
Starkey was asked about his thoughts calling the iconic play as it was unfolding.
“Mostly terrified,” Starkey exclaimed. “The reason was when I was growing up, I was a student of sportscasters. I never thought I would be one. I ended up a banker for several years. But I always had a sense of the big play going on when broadcasters have a really big important play. You knew how important it was getting it right. So, I was terrified that I would get it wrong. I mean for example I never mentioned anybody’s name after (Kevin) Moen got the original kickoff and it took me a long time to be comfortable with that because I felt, ‘did I screw this up?’ Should I have had more detail? And in those days remember there was no cable or satellite, there were no replays or those kinds of things and it was till a while later that I got to watch it over and over again. I finally got comfortable with it because there was no reason to feel guilty. I couldn’t even see them. There were too many people on the field, too many band members, and too many people in the way. The fact that I didn’t call the names doesn’t bother me anymore.”
As iconic a Cal-centric play The Play is, its lore extends far beyond the boundaries of the old Pac-10 and the bay area.
“Yes. In fact, it comes up in the most unusual places. I can give you a quick story,” noted Starkey. “The great (MLB Hall of Famer) Joe Morgan had a golf tournament for years over in East Bay and I was invited as a so-called celebrity. Obviously, it was stretching at it that point.
“I played one year with some guys from Southern California and about three or four holes in, they said. ‘We were supposed to have some celebrities with us. We don’t know who you are. Why are you our so-called celebrity?’ I said, “Oh really. How bout this phrase? “The band is on the field.” ‘OHHHH!’ That’s about how well-known it’s gotten to be. It’s become a phrase almost everyone has gotten to know through the years, and I was just lucky to be there.”
Ironically, Starkey association with the Moen family started a decade or more before Moen flattened Stanford band trombone player Gary Tyrell for his famous touchdown romp in the ‘82 Big Game.
“I think that is one of the most amazing side stories of this whole thing,” noted Starkey. “When I came out to the West Coast from Chicago, went to Mattel Toys working as a corporate recruiter, and then a Vice President of recruiting for Union Bank, it was in the Los Angeles office. At that point, his dad Don Moen was basically my boss. Not a direct line but he had a superior position and he could give me orders and all that sort of things and that’s how I got to know the family to begin with. And then years later obviously when we got involved with the play with Kevin.
“It’s a great relationship for us. But a story I didn’t even know for a long time, just a few years ago, his dad Don had one of the activities around the Big Game. He said, ‘You know I used to walk by your office at Union Bank at our office in downtown Los Angeles and it will be a Tuesday or Wednesday morning like 11 o’clock and I couldn’t understand what kind of game you were listening to. He said, ‘No one was playing. The Dodgers weren’t playing. How can you listen to a sporting event on Tuesday or Wednesday morning in the office? I then figured it out. You were using our time to critique your own tapes.’ And that is exactly what I was doing.”
The veteran announcer is known for his long career with the Cal program but he also dipped his toe in the water with the NFL and NHL, not to mention the Olympics, calling games for the San Francisco 49ers, the California Golden Seals and the winter Olympics. When Starkey was asked about other memorable play calls in his career, his thoughts drifted towards the latter.
“Well, the play gets covered over and over and over again,” noted Starkey. “And people ask is there any other play in your career that came close to that? I said, “well ironically, yes. It happened in a completely different sport. I worked for ABC and KGBL back in the 80s. I had been in the NHL for almost 8 years when the US played Russia in Lake Placid. So I was set up by ABC to cover it and the assistant coach for the hockey team was Craig Patrick who was a Seals hockey player so he had insight and interest in players that a lot of people didn’t have and because of that, I had to call the 3rd period on the radio of the US Russia hockey game. So if there’s one game in my memory that jumps up there very close to the play that would be the one.
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“For Cal games, there are certain games and players that jump out. Obviously, besides The Play itself, my first year had some of the most dramatic plays. In my first year, we had a wonderful quarterback named Joe Roth in fact I told my kids later when they grew up if they ever wanted to emulate a young man and how he lives, Joe Roth is the guy. Everything about him; character, integrity, qualities that were just unlimited and obviously just a great talent. So that was a great thrill to just watch and heartbreaking of course to hear he died so early. But right from the beginning, I had all these people who really helped me.
“The players when I first arrived, Ted Albrecht was an offensive lineman for the Bears in ‘75 as I started my first year in football. My entire football experience was just playing junior college football at the end of the bench, so I did not know a lot about the game. Teddy Albrecht the offensive lineman for Cal and Mike White as my head coach at that point were awesome. They brought me to the film room, showed me what to look for and things like that because I didn’t have knowledge of the game. So there are people all the way along that have had a tremendous impact on me and understanding the game and learning more about the game.”
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Starkey with Cal beat writers
After so many years behind the mic and building relationships with so many people associated with the Cal program over so many decades, calling his last Big Game this weekend and his final game as a Cal announcer the following week vs. UCLA will be bittersweet for Starkey.
“It’s going to be awful,” Starkey said. “I am an Irishman and I’m going to cry. I don’t think there will be any doubt that it will be hugely emotional for me. Just because of all of the history, all the players and coaches I have known. Guys who have become lifetime friends. Yes, it’s going to have an impact, there’s no doubt about it. It’s a tough call.
“It was a very difficult decision to make. It was a case of would you like to be here too long or would you like to cut it maybe a little bit short for the overall benefit of your career? I decided this is probably the right time with all the anniversaries, the 40-year anniversary I thought this was the best time to go.”
I'm really going to miss him. As I've shared many times, his style is unlike anyone else I've heard in either the Pac, B1G or SEC. His enthusiasm for the game itself, for Cal, and the color and pageantry of college football (especially the things that make (or at least used to make) Cal football gameday special are unparalleled. In recent years, his chemistry with Paws in the booth have been fun and entertaining. And I have always appreciated how, especially after Big Game, he will ask players about their future plans and experiences at Cal. We may end up with a better play by play announcer. But we'll be hard pressed to find anyone who brings the colorful anecdotes and peripheral parts of rivalries into the broadcast. I don't know that there is anyone out there who can bring that to the broadcast as he does.
