Ted Patterson, Prodigal Sportscaster

      We all knew Ted would hit the ground running after his graduation.  

     Professor Utter remarked of his Master's Thesis: "Golden Voices of Sports was a major accomplishment equaled only, in its way, by Jim Grover's BIX radio series thesis. Creative theses of this caliber you simply don’t see at Miami any more." 
     When Ted sat down at the WMUB microphone at a Miami U. sports event, nobody laughed.  His keen situational sense, his precise knowledge of the game being played and his command of the tools of his trade combined to make it look to us as though play-by-play was simple and fun.  Listening to him was like watching a movie in our minds.  Even geeks could understand what was going on down on the field.

     As fellow junior-league broadcasters we recognized that Ted's duck-in-water comfort on the air sprang from an abundance of talent.   He possessed an eidetic memory for statistics, and he had natural gifts for making sense out of chaos, and telling a story as it happened. (I wish I could have heard him narrate a student riot, just once.)

     What's more remarkable is that he seems immune to star fever.  In spite of his celebrity, he greets folks with a hands-in-pockets persona that reminds one of Will Rogers. 

     Ted returned from Baltimore to his alma mater for a visit in 2011, after a brilliant 45-year career as a radio and television sportscaster.  He also wrote many books.  Amazon lists nine of them, and  Ted has his own author's page  there.


 

 Jay Colville, Guardian of the Cradle. 



Recorded 12/11/1967 at Miami University, WMUB-TV, Oxford, Ohio.


Directed by Lee Schubert.

Ted Patterson interviews Jay Colville, iconic Athletic Trainer who attended 
every MU athletic event, beginning in 1922 as an undergraduate.

 

 Part 1
Part 2

 

     Ted's resume is impressive:  

     He was Navy football's play-by-play man for thirteen years. 

     He called Orioles games, Towson State and UMBC basketball contests, and Morgan State football games.  

     Ted served for eleven years as sports director for WCBM-AM, sixteen years as Sports Director for WPOC-FM, with stints at WMAR-TV and WBAL-AM, where he was the host of Baltimore's first regularly-scheduled sports talk show.  

 

Lou Brock, National Baseball Hall of Fame 
and St. Louis Cardinal Legend

Here, Ted interviews another Hall of Famer,
baseball legend Ted Williams

        

      His home in suburban Anneslie, north of Baltimore,  is a Ripley's museum of sports. 

     Rooms are filled with memorabilia--photos, autographed balls, baseball caps, bats, uniforms, and baseball cards printed two centuries ago.  

 

 As you can see from the drawings above, Ted has good hands on and off the basketball court. 

 

     Ted's wife Diana was stricken with melanoma in the 1980's, which led to a long, debilitating fight against severe health problems.  For most of that time Ted and his daughter Claire cared for Diana at home.  She passed away in 2008, ending a marriage of 37 years.

 


 June 13, 2011.  Photos on this page by Tom Collins     Left to right::  William L. Utter, Thomas Collins, Ted Patterson, Sallie Ervin, Mike Grayson

 

    Now, Ted is starting a new chapter of his own, which may account  for his return to the Miami Campus and the meet-and-greet with his old classmates. We were grateful for the opportunity, and proud (if a bit envious) of his accomplishments.  

 

 Ted asked that we include his email address on this reunion site.

Reunion Main Page