Since 1977 the Philadelphia Eagles have had hundreds of wins and losses, countless players scoring countless touchdowns, four players inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, three Miracles at the Meadowlands, two conference championships, but just one voice.
Merrill Reese is entering his 41st season as the play-by-play broadcaster of the Philadelphia Eagles and has been synonymous with the Eagles and their fan base ever since. Every great Eagles memory or highlight film is accompanied by Reese’s iconic voice making the call. He’s a fan, just like any other, and you can hear it come across the radio waves every Sunday in the fall.
“It just started from the very beginning,” said Reese in an exclusive interview with Philly Sports Network. “We had a great big radio and first I’d listen to the Penn [University] games and my parents took me out to Penn games…I was introduced to the Eagles quite early and listened to all the Eagles games and when they became televised watched the Eagles games and then my father took me out to watch the Eagles so I was in love with the Eagles from the time I was a little boy.”
Reese, who went to Overbrook High School, the West Philadelphia school that graduated both Wilt Chamberlain and Will Smith, chose to stay in the City of Brotherly Love after graduating and attend Temple University. At Temple, Reese began his broadcasting career, working for the Temple student station calling the Owls’ football games.
With Reese being in the city of Philadelphia from birth, he has learned that the only way to be is direct. He is as honest as they come. When the Eagles are bad, he doesn’t sugar coat it. And more than that, when the team is doing well, the passion that he exudes is unreal.
“I love how he loves the Eagles,” said Chris McPherson, a colleague of Reese’s at PhiladelphiaEagles.com, “But he’s not a homer. He’ll tell it like it is when things aren’t going well. I think he speaks for every fan when he’s on the air. You can hear the tone of his voice and know exactly how the game is going. I don’t want to imagine Eagles football without Merrill.”
“Merrill is a guest in my home every Sunday afternoon,” adds lifelong Eagles fan Joe Malone, who listens to the radio broadcasts of Eagles games while watching on his television. “He never disappoints. He’s a fan like all Eagles fans. He’ll criticize the team when it’s warranted.”
Reese has made his mark among his colleagues and his passion and humility is evident to anyone who crosses paths with him.
“The guy is a real Philadelphia treasure,” says Hall of Fame writer Ray Didinger, who first met Reese in the Temple broadcast booth in 1966 while Didinger was broadcasting an Owls football game. “When he says there’s nothing he would rather do I totally believe him.”
Reese’s passion for radio extends further than he remembers.
“I was listening to games on the radio when I was two or three,” said Reese. “My parents could park me in front of a radio and I could sit and listen to a Phillies double-header, probably at four years old, that’s how much I loved it.”
Stemming from the radio broadcasts he listened to as a child, Reese cites legendary broadcaster Bill Campbell as a big influence – along with the dream of being a quarterback that was halted when Reese maxed out at 5-8, 140 pounds – for him getting into sports broadcasting.
“[Campbell] did the Eagles, he did the Warriors, he did the 76ers, he did the Phillies,” said Reese. “He was one of the greatest interviewers I’ve ever heard. Bill Campbell would be the guy, when I was growing up, who was the great role model. And of course later we became friends. He was almost like a relative to my wife and I.”
Reese and Campbell’s relationship came full circle in February of 2016 when Reese was awarded the inaugural Bill Campbell Broadcast Award by the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association.
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Reese’s memories with the Philadelphia Eagles can be split into two categories: before being a broadcaster and while broadcasting. Reese recalls the memory of when he was and 18-year-old kid who went to great lengths to experience the Philadelphia Eagles handing legendary coach Vince Lombardi the only postseason loss of his career in the 1960 NFL Championship game.
“There was a lottery for the right to buy tickets to the 1960 Championship Game,” explains Reese, “I was one of those selected in the lottery and whatever it cost – I think it was 20 dollars or 15 dollars – my parents bought me a ticket and I took a trolley, a bus and a trolley and went down to Franklin Field…I sat by myself in the lower endzone and watched the Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers in the 1960 World Championship.”
On a 48 degree afternoon in Philadelphia, the underdog Eagles overcame the legendary Packers and won the NFL Championship 17-13. The championship was the last title the Philadelphia Eagles had won.
As a broadcaster, Reese’s most memorable moment is likely shared among many Eagles fans. The call is one of the greatest, too.
“My favorite is still December 19th, 2010,” Reese remembers the date without hesitation, “When the Eagles came from way behind to beat the Giants at the Meadowlands and the walk-off punt return by DeSean Jackson.”
Reese recalls the play as the most dramatic he has ever seen. The game, for those who don’t remember, was “wrapped up,” as Reese said during the broadcast with a Kevin Boss touchdown reception that put the Giants ahead 31-10 with just 8:17 remaining in the final quarter of play.
Following a Brent Celek 65-yard touchdown reception, a successful Eagles onside kick and a Michael Vick rushing touchdown, Reese recalls a book written twenty years earlier with near pinpoint accuracy. “No Medals for Trying,” by Jerry Izenberg chronicled a week in the life of the 1990 New York Giants football team as they prepared to face off against the Philadelphia Eagles. As Reese refers to the book, football games are either won or lost, you don’t get any credit for coming close. Reese believed that the Eagles efforts should be admired, though, no matter the outcome of the game.
As the Eagles put together a drive to attempt to tie the game, Reese tells his listeners “hang onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen. This is something special!” Just moments later, Michael Vick finds Jeremy Maclin for a 13-yard touchdown to tie the game. Reese, in a Nostradamus moment, tells former Eagles wide receiver Mike Quick, his partner in the broadcast booth, that if the Eagles found a way to win the game, it will be the most memorable of his long career. The Eagles forced a quick three-and-out on the Giants ensuing drive which forced them to punt the ball. With just 14 seconds remaining in the game, Reese makes the call.
“Matt Dodge to punt. It’s a high snap, gets it away. It’s a knuckler. Jackson, takes it at the 35, picks it up, looks for running room. He’s at the 40, he’s at the 45, midfield, he’s at the 40, he’s gonna go!” As Jackson hits the open field, Quick starts yelling “OH! OH!” Reese increases his volume over Quick’s as he continues to call the most memorable moment of his broadcasting career. “DeSean Jackson! I don’t care if he jumps, dives, he’s running around and he is in the endzone! There’s no time and the Eagles win! The Eagles win! … He ran around until all the zeros were on the clock and the Giants fans can’t believe it and the Eagles have just pulled off the most remarkable win I have ever seen.”
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Moments like overcoming a 21-point deficit in less than half a quarter are impossible to prepare for. Still, Reese’s call and the anecdotes he shared during the comeback were fantastic. Those, like the ones he shares during every broadcast, are a testament to the hours of work Reese puts in during the week to perfect his broadcast.
“He gives his wife, Cindy, flash cards to practice the names of players,” said McPherson. “The attention to detail has never waned. After all of these years, he still gets anxious before broadcasts and has a set routine. You learn how much work it takes to be the best, and it’s no different for Merrill.”
Reese’s weekly schedule is packed with speaking engagements, charity golf events and radio shows. And that is in addition to being the managing partner of WBCB, a radio station based in Levittown, attending practices and press conferences at the Eagles’ headquarters and having a weekly one-on-one meeting with Eagles head coach Doug Pederson.
The work doesn’t stop when Reese gets home, either.
“No matter what time I get home,” said Reese, “I go into my study. It can be 10 o’clock at night and I spend at least an hour and a half to two hours at my desk looking at tape of the upcoming team, memorizing the uniform numbers, putting together a book of things I want to touch on during the broadcast with Mike Quick, it’s just all encompassing.”
Reese says on the conservative end he puts in about 70 hours of work each week. He works six, twelve-hour days and only takes a night off the night before a game to clear his head and have a relaxing dinner.
However, when those days are travel days for Eagles away games, Reese’s day off is quickly gobbled up by watching “an enormous amount of college football” – as many as eight games each weekend. These games turn into study sessions for potential Eagles’ draft targets in the following year’s draft.
Reese’s passion for the game does not rest.
Reese agrees that the culmination of all of his hard work and the countless hours he pours into his craft was his induction into the Eagles Hall of Fame in 2016. In the summer before the 2016 season, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie called Reese directly to tell him the news. Reese had to keep the call a secret for a short time as the official announcement came later that summer.
“[Lurie] called me and told me about it,” said Reese, “and it sent chills through my body and I felt very emotional. That was something I never thought of. I never thought about accolades and awards and halls of fame but boy, that meant so much to me to hear Jeffrey Lurie say that I belonged in the Eagles Hall of Fame.”
The induction night finally came on November 28th as the Eagles faced off against the Packers, the same matchup Reese witnessed 56 years earlier in the 1960 NFL Championship game. Reese described the feeling of walking out and hearing the capacity crowd on that Monday night and his induction as “one of the greatest days of my life.”
While Reese sees the honor of being the 41st member of the Eagles Hall of Fame as the culmination of all of his hard work, he does not see it as his end goal or a sign that he can hang it up. As humble as they come, Reese does not take his career for granted, even 41 years after it began.
“Every time I get into that broadcast booth,” said Reese. “I appreciate the fact that this is what I do and it is what I’d rather do more than anything else in the world. And I will never retire. I will do this as long as I can which I hope is many years to come and I love it more than anything.”
“There is no place I’d rather be than in the Eagles broadcast booth,” Reese continued. “I’m just as nervous on game day now as I was forty years ago. The excitement of this job has never diminished even the slightest degree.”
Mandatory Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt Rourke
