Biography Mike Barrett (sportscaster)

1 biography

1.1 years
1.2 broadcasting career
1.3 family

biography
early years

mike barrett born in 1968 in idaho, son of high school basketball coach, duane barrett. grew fan of professional major league team in home state of oregon, portland trail blazers, regularly attending games father.

following graduation west albany high school, barrett attended oregon state university (osu), located 10 miles away in neighboring corvallis, oregon. graduated osu in 1991 degree in journalism.

broadcasting career

mike barrett interviews blazer center joel przybilla in portland @ time of 2006 free agent signing.

after graduating oregon state university, barrett went work radio station kuik-am 1360 in hillsboro calling high school basketball games. became sports director @ kxl-am 750 in portland, flagship station of trail blazers, in 1992. while @ kxl barrett anchored station s morning , afternoon sportscasts working sideline reporter university of oregon football broadcasts.

in 1999, hired portland trail blazers radio studio host , editor of blazers official magazine, rip city magazine. next year, went work radio , television play-by-play announcer wnba s portland fire, role continued until team disbanded in 2003.

barrett named play-by-play announcer trail blazers 2003–04 season, working first 2 years next steve snapper jones. 2005–06 season joined analyst mike rice on blazers telecasts, assignment caused him assume role of straight man loquacious , unrestrained broadcast partner. barrett has said of partner:

rice good, s character, , strip away of cartoon character, , m lucky work him. think calls memorable say. give him room. of traditional broadcasters want own space, upset when analyst gets in , steps on call. m not that. want there fill in blanks , provide information , entertainment.

in addition calling play-by-play, barrett , rice appeared on weekly radio , television show, trail blazers courtside.

barrett wrote voluminously blog on blazers website, offering game reviews , behind-the-scenes perspective on team. barrett recalled origins of on-line publication in 2008 interview:

funny thing when blog started @ summer league 3 or 4 years ago, said write stuff training camp, , kind of strange, saw write in real conversational way, involved people. 1 of odd things stumble , of sudden ve created lot of work yourself. s not bad thing s thing.



takes lot of time, know. , maintain — moderate 95% of comments, see them all, put picture up, headline, s own little newspaper. , s pretty cool journalism anyway. writing has been pretty easy. sit down write after game or after event, positive or negative news, s way of going home , unwinding , reliving it. think lot of writers that. s way of going home , coming down high of night.

wordy, long, start writing. tell me, write paragraph, , said, going, can t. next thing know m @ 2,000 words. ve enjoyed sitting down after kids , wife go bed, sit down, , process through things. helps me remember game better, helps me realize it, next time play somebody, remember not game blog. can go , review if want to.
family

mike barrett lives wife, shelly, in tualatin, oregon. couple have 2 children, son named jack , daughter named gabby.