Many might call ESPN and MSG Networks announcer Mike Breen the modern dean of basketball broadcasters, but Breen holds a different man in that esteem.
The voice of the NBA Finals and New York Knicks joined the Burns & Gambo Show in Phoenix this week to pay tribute to the late Al McCoy, who passed away this month at age 91 after 51 years calling Suns games on local radio and television.
“For a man who wasn’t very tall, he was a giant of a man,” Breen said. “In our business, he was the dean of all NBA broadcasters.”
While Breen was able to speak with McCoy in the final weeks of his life and knew his death was imminent, Breen was still struck by the magnitude of his career when he finally heard the news that McCoy passed.
“We all looked up to him. All of us,” Breen said. “And certainly a lot of it was the way he broadcast and his Hall of Fame career. But we looked up to him to because of the way he carried himself and the way you would learn by not just listening to him on the air, but how he interacted with people. He showed us how to do the job in every aspect, from on-air to off-air.”
Breen told a story of traveling to Phoenix for the first time as a Knicks broadcaster and being surprised that McCoy introduced himself to Breen rather than the other way around. In Breen’s telling, that instinct never left McCoy as a caretaker of the Suns media group as well as the broader NBA media.
“For a man who had so much skill and play-by-play talent and personality, the thing that I remember most is that he just had so much kindness to him,” Breen said.
Known for exuberant signature calls such as “Shazam!” or “Whammo Time,” McCoy captured the action of a basketball game as well as any radio announcer in history. But he also, according to Breen, was as well-versed in the action on the court as anyone.
“Sometimes PBP announcers don’t get credit, he knew the game,” Breen explained. “He didn’t go into any complicated strategic thing, he just, in a plain simple way that anybody could understand … he told you exactly what was going on with the Suns and with your team. He knew the game, and he loved the game.”
McCoy called games for nearly the entire history of the Suns franchise before retiring after the 2022-23 season. The Footprint Center media room in Phoenix is dedicated to him, and he is enshrined in the team’s Ring of Honor. On a national level, McCoy won the Curt Gowdy Award in 2007 and was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
But to Breen and others in NBA media, McCoy was more than just a vet. He was the dean.
