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!
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