Legendary Sports Broadcaster Dick Enberg Found Dead

Dick Enberg, a broadcaster who covered everything from the NFL to the Olympics to Wimbledon, was found dead of an apparent heart attack in his San Diego home on Thursday. Enberg, a Michigan native, got his start in the broadcasting business at Central Michigan University back in the 1950s.

Enberg was 82. His death was confirmed to the Associated Press by his daughter, Nicole Enberg Vaz, who said the family became concerned when he did not show up for a flight to Boston on Thursday. He was found dead with his bags packed in his home in the San Diego neighborhood of La Jolla.

Raised in Armada, Michigan, Enberg's first radio job was actually as a radio station custodian in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, when he was a junior at Central Michigan, reported the Associated Press. While making a $1 an hour, he also got weekend sports and disc jockey gigs. From there he began doing high school and college football games. He soon covered high school and college football games.

Enberg's move to a national stage came in 1968, when he covered the first nationally televised regular season college basketball game at the Astrodome, where Houston upset UCLA, reported the Detroit Free Press.

In 1975, Enberg joined NBC Sports and covered professional football, basketball and baseball for the network over the next 25 years. He also covered professional golf, tennis, boxing and horse racing. Many people also will remember his calls of the Olympic Games.

Over the years, he's had many broadcast partners, including Merlin Olsen, Al McGuire, Billy Packer, Don Drysdale and Tony Gwynn. Most recently, Enberg called Padres games for seven seasons and went into the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015 as the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award. He retired from the Padres broadcast booth in 2016, ending a six decade career.

In his storied career, Enberg won 13 Sports Emmy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and UCLA named its Media Center in Pauley Pavilion after Enberg this year.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara, and six children.

Some information for this story came from the Associated Press.
Photo: In this May 21, 2016, file photo, sportscaster Dick Enberg acknowledges the crowd during the first inning of a baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Rays in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)