UCLA broadcaster Chris Roberts, that called the football and also males’s basketball play-by-play for 23 periods prior to retiring, passed away May 12 at his Glendora, Calif., residence at age 74. He had problems of Parkinson’s condition, according to the college.
Roberts started calling video games in the autumn of 1992 via the springtime of 2015, while doing so establishing a regional document for calling NCAA Division I video games on Los Angeles radio. His last period with the Bruins remained in 2014-15, when Roberts amounted to Fred Hessler’s document for the lengthiest tenured play-by-play broadcaster in UCLA background.
Roberts called 16 championship game, consisting of the Bruins’ Rose Bowl looks on January 1, 1994 and also January 1, 1999. Roberts additionally transmitted the males’s basketball group for 19 journeys to the NCAA Tournament. That consisted of the 1995 NCAA Tournament Championship.
The writer of 2 publications, Stadium Stories: UCLA Bruins and also UCLA Football Vault, which he co-wrote with Bill Bennett, Roberts was an eight-time candidate for the SCSBA’s Play-by-Play Broadcaster of the Year Award and also a citizen for both the Heisman Trophy and also the John R. Wooden Award. He was a four-time Golden Mike Award champion and also a Hall of Fame participant in the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Association (SCSBA).
Born Bob LaPeer in Alhambra, Calif., Roberts played baseball at Cal Poly Pomona and also started his occupation in broadcasting at KCIN in Victorville. He hung out on the air at KREO in Indio and also KWOW in Pomona, where he revealed secondary school and also junior university sporting activities.
Roberts went to KFXM in San Bernardino in 1970 when the program supervisor at the terminal asked him to transform his name. He later on relocated to Los Angeles and also operated at KUTE-FM, KFI and also sibling terminal KOST, and also later on at KMPC. He functioned as the play-by-play voice at Long Beach State for one decade prior to UCLA.
During his 23-year period as UCLA’s play-by-play broadcaster, Roberts functioned together with previous quarterbacks David Norrie, Matt Stevens and also Wayne Cook. With the males’s basketball group, Roberts’ radio experts throughout the years had actually consisted of Marques Johnson, Mike Warren, Bob Myers, Don MacLean and also Tracy Murray.
Roberts is endured by his partner Ann LaPeer, boy David LaPeer and also child-in-law Yvette LaPeer, daughter Nichole Hijon-LaPeer, son-in-law Octavio Hijon and also grandchildren Andrés, Santiago and also Carmen.
