Exclusive | Kenny Albert reflects on whirlwind career as hes set to call 500th Fox NFL game
Kenny Albert was in his mid-20s and unbeknownst to him, a Fox Sports executive was listening to tapes of him calling college lacrosse.Albert, now 56, joined Fox Sports for their first year of NFL coverage in 1994 and is set to call his 500th game for the network when the Eagles host the Browns at 1 p.m.
ET on Sunday.Fox believes Albert is the first individual who has ever been in the booth for 500 NFL games at one single network.Before Fox landed the NFL, Albert was mainly calling Washington Capitals games and told The Post in a recent interview that being a professional football broadcaster was the “farthest thing” from his mind.Years after his hiring, Albert learned that one of the factors in his hiring was that former Fox Sports executive George Krieger, who worked alongside David Hill, Ed Goren and Larry Jones, had a son who was a big high school lacrosse player.“George happened to ask his friend Jodi Shapiro, who ran HomeTeam Sports where I was working in Washington D.C., to send him some VHS tapes of college lacrosse games,” Albert said, emphasizing that this was years before content like this could be widely discovered online.“Apparently, thanks to those lacrosse tapes, that was some of the work that he heard me doing.”This helped lead to Albert’s audition for the NFL on Fox.
Fox’s stable of play-by-play announcers took on a fascinating form after the network stunningly poached the NFC package away from CBS, as they hired seasoned vets Pat Summerall — who by this time already had a legendary partnership with John Madden from years as CBS’ top team — and Dick Stockton.Fox then built around them with four broadcasters in their 20s: Albert, Joe Buck, Thom Brennaman and Kevin Harlan.The young crew all had significant lineage — Albert, Buck and Brennaman were all the sons of famous sports broadcasters Marv, Jack and Marty, respectively, and Harlan’s father Bob was president of the Packers at the time.
Albert landed the job at 26 year...