After noticing a recent flurry of such first-time pairings, I wondered how many different play-by-play partners have shared the broadcast table with Vitale over the years. So I attempted to compile a list of all play-by-play announcers who have worked with Vitale on college basketball. (Note: I am almost certainly missing some announcers from the early ESPN years as these the hardest to research.)
Vitale called the first college basketball game ever on ESPN back in December 1979 alongside Joe Boyle. Eventually, ESPN paired him regularly with Jim Simpson. In subsequent years, his most common ESPN partners included Mike Patrick, Tim Brando, Brad Nessler, and Dan Shulman. When ABC started carrying college games, he frequently worked with Keith Jackson and later Brent Musburger.The list is a mix of prestigious broadcasters and lesser-known voices. One interesting name (perhaps surprising to some) is Al Michaels who worked a single time with Vitale (the 1989 Pac-10 championship game on ABC).
I find the pattern intriguing. Starting from the late 1980s, Vitale was acquiring about two new partners per year. Then after 1997, Vitale went without any new partners until 2005 and only picked up three additions to this list from through 2013. However, a few years ago, ESPN installed Jay Bilas as its top analyst to work with Shulman on the highest profile games. This move has resulted in Vitale working with a wide variety of first-time partners in recent seasons (10 since 2014).
Here is the list that my research uncovered (with calendar year of the first such telecast for which I found evidence). Again, note that I am very likely to be missing some names from the first decade.
- Joe Boyle - 1979
- Jim Simpson - 1980
- Jim Thacker - 1982
- Fred White - 1982
- Bob Ley - 1983
- John Sanders- 1983
- Kevin Slaten - 1983
- Mike Patrick - 1983
- Sam Rosen - 1984
- Rich Winter - 1984
- Tim Brando - 1985
- Jim Kelly - 1986
- Andy McWilliams - 1986
- Bob Rathbun - 1986
- John Saunders - 1987
- Keith Jackson - 1987
- Gary Bender - 1988
- Al Michaels - 1989
- Roger Twibell - 1989
- Barry Tompkins - 1989
- Ron Franklin - 1990
- Bob Carpenter - 1990
- Wayne Larrivee - 1991
- Gary Thorne - 1991
- Sean McDonough - 1992
- Brent Musburger - 1992
- Brad Nessler - 1992
- Joel Meyers - 1993
- Dave Sims - 1995
- Dan Shulman - 1995
- Dave Barnett - 1996
- Mike Tirico - 1997
- Mark Jones - 1997
- Dave Pasch - 2005
- Dave O'Brien - 2007
- Jon Sciambi - 2011
- Bob Wischusen - 2014
- Rich Hollenburg - 2014
- Adam Amin 2015
- Rece Davis - 2016
- Mike Morgan - 2016
- Jason Benetti - 2016
- Dave Flemming - 2016
- Doug Sherman - 2016
- Tom Hart - 2017
- Karl Ravech - 2017
