Pat Summerall - #49

Pat Summerall has died, he was number 49 on the list.

NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall dies at 82

Legendary football broadcaster Pat Summerall, left, pictured with with John Madden in the broadcast booth before Super Bowl XXXVI on Feb. 3, 2002, has died. He was 82.

Sportscaster Pat Summerall, who teamed with John Madden for more than two decades on NFL telecasts, forming one of the best known announcing duos in TV history, has died. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell, according to the Associated Press. No other details were immediately available.

Summerall had been living in Southlake, Texas, in recent years.

Known for his deep, resonant voice and a smooth, understated delivery that wasted no words, Summerall worked with Tom Brookshier on the NFL for CBS from 1975 and was paired with Madden in 1981. Summerall and Madden went as a team to Fox in 1994 after that upstart network acquired NFL rights and the pair remained a team through the 2002 Super Bowl.

In 1999, Summerall was inducted into the American Sportscaster Assn.'s Hall of Fame.

Summerall worked 16 Super Bowls for CBS and Fox, the most by any network announcer.

In 2002, Madden left for ABC and Joe Buck replaced Summerall as Fox's lead NFL play-by-play announcer.

Summerall was the low-key, concise counterpoint to Madden, the former NFL coach who offered exuberant yet knowledgeable analysis.

As Madden put it once: “I'd say about three or four paragraphs that didn't make any sense, and he would say three words that would make sense out of my three paragraphs that didn't make any sense.”

Before becoming a broadcaster, Summerall played 10 seasons in the NFL, primarily as a kicker with the Detroit Lions, Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants. His best years were with the Giants, who reached the NFL championship game in three of his four seasons with the team.

Summerall played football for the Arkansas Razorbacks and then in the National Football League (NFL) from 1952 through 1961. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions and played with Bobby Layne. His best playing years were as a kicker with the New York Giants.

After retiring from football, Summerall was hired by CBS Sports in 1962 to work as a color commentator on the network's NFL coverage. CBS initially paired Summerall with Chris Schenkel on Giants games; three years later he shifted to working with Jim Gibbons on Washington Redskins games. In 1968, after CBS abandoned the practice of assigning dedicated announcing crews to particular NFL teams, Summerall ascended to the network's lead national crew, pairing with Jack Buck and then Ray Scott. For the postgame coverage of the very first Super Bowl at the end of the 1967 season (which was simulcast by CBS and NBC), the trophy presentation ceremony was handled by CBS' Summerall (who worked as a reporter, while CBS' game coverage was called by Ray Scott, Jack Whitaker and Frank Gifford) and NBC's George Ratterman. Summerall and Ratterman were forced to share a single microphone.

Summerall was named the National Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association in 1977, and inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1994. That year, he also received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the American Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 1999. The "Pat Summerall Award" has been presented since 2006 during Super Bowl weekend at the NFL's headquarters hotel "to a deserving recipient who through their career has demonstrated the character, integrity and leadership both on and off the job that the name Pat Summerall represents."

During the mid-1990s, Summerall hosted the "Summerall-Aikman" Cowboys report with quarterback Troy Aikman.

Summerall battled alcoholism throughout much of his life and wrote about it in his 2006 autobiography, “Pat Summerall: On and Off the Air.”