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 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 Jody 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 years old with no NFL experience and not having called much football at all — he’d done some high school and Division-III college games for Cox Cable on Long Island, as well as some Wagner College contests in the 1980s.
At Fox, Albert first worked alongside former NFL defensive back Ron Pitts for a season, and then one with Hall of Fame offensive tackle Anthony Muñoz. This was followed by seven years with former Falcons linebacker and defensive end Tim Green.
Green, who became a prolific author with children’s books on the New York Times bestseller list, is currently battling ALS, and last week Albert went to an event in Atlanta for Green’s “Tackle ALS” foundation.
After Green, Albert worked with Brian Baldinger for four years.
He then spent a decade with Daryl “Moose” Johnston, which also featured Tony “Goose” Siragusa as a hybrid analyst and sideline reporter on the field for most of the run.
Albert echoed the sentiments that a lot of announcers have said over the years, which is that he’s found a sense of kinship with his broadcast partners and the production crews due to how much time they’ve spent on the road together.
“You really become like a family. For 31 years, I really haven’t spent a weekend at home unless I’m calling a local game,” Albert said.
“I once figured out, the eight years that Moose and Goose and I worked together, it was literally 60 days a year we were together. With Goose, who we tragically lost two years ago, he always wanted to live life to its fullest. He never wanted to sit still. Some of the memories I have, even more so than a lot of the games we called together, on Saturdays when we had some downtime Goose was like the camp counselor — he always wanted to be out there doing something in the city we were in.”
Excursions included a jet boat tour of Niagara Falls around a Bills game, riding around at 150 miles per hour in race cars at the NASCAR track in Charlotte and petting baby alligators on a swamp boat tour in New Orleans.
Later, Albert then spent three years with Ronde Barber, and for the last five seasons his partner has been Jonathan Vilma.
Along the way, he also worked games with Troy Aikman, John Lynch, Charles Davis, Bill Maas, Tiki Barber, Sean Jones and Greg Olsen.
Memorable moments Albert called included the game where Terrell Owens stomped on the Cowboys’ star and got decked by George Teague, Bill Cowher shoving a Polaroid photo in the referee’s shirt at halftime after an erroneous 12-men-on-the-field call and Michael Vick scampering for a 46-yard touchdown in overtime to beat the Vikings as his career with the Falcons was starting to blossom.
Albert also called the infamous game where the Eagles tied the Bengals and Donovan McNabb admitted he didn’t even know ties were a thing, and the game where Eli Manning and Drew Brees combined for an NFL-record 13 touchdown passes.
In addition to the NFL, Albert currently also calls a smattering of MLB games for Fox.
He calls games for the NHL on TNT package and has been a broadcaster for the last nine Olympics on NBC.
Albert is also the voice of the Rangers’ radio on ESPN New York, and fills in for Mike Breen for the Knicks for about 15 games a year on MSG.
All these years later, he said that he still has “vivid” memories of the first NFL game he called for Fox, a contest that featured the Rams and Cardinals with Buddy Ryan and Chuck Knox as the head coaches.
“It’s absolutely crazy that it’s been 31 years. I don’t know where the time has gone. It’s almost surreal,” Albert said.
