Mike Roberts, THE Voice of the Lobos

Mike Roberts, one of the few “Voice of the Lobos” that has ever existed, has left the broadcast booth on earth, headed for a higher plain.  Here a couple stories

For years Mike and I worked in the broadcast/television business in Albuquerque.  We were never real competitors, other than we worked at competing stations.  We might have even worked at the same place at the same time.

When Mike was ousted as the Lobos play-by-play may, I was in attendance at the last Lobo Basketball game he called.   It was at Cal in California.

I walked over to say hi, and he told me, “This may be my last Lobo broadcast, they’ve sold the rights to the games to somebody.”  It was a melancholy moment for him – and he was correct on both points.

My wife, Connie, worked for a while at KOB (when Stanley Hubbard still owned the radio station – before it became K-KOB).

She recalls having to work a shift “on the board” – punching buttons – during a Mike broadcast.  

Those can be nerve wracking times – things have to go right, the timing has to be right.  Mike knew Connie was nervous about punching the buttons for the commercials, so when it came time for a commercial break, Mike would say, on the air,  “We’ll get back to the game after  this 30 second commercial message from Rich Ford”…at which point Connie would push a button and the commercial would play.  He was instructing her from the remote site.   He did that for the entire broadcast, “I’ll be back after this ___ second message from ____.” 

By stating the obvious he made a complicated broadcast come off as a symphony.

Keep callin’ ‘em as you see’m Mike!