Neil Funk, the voice of five Bulls championship seasons, said Wednesday he intends to step down from his TV play-by-play post after this season, his 29th with the team.
To quote one of Funk’s signature phrases, “Kaboom!”
“This is going to be it, the final swan song,” Funk, 72, told the Tribune. “You have mixed emotions. It hasn’t really hit me yet. I don’t think it will hit me until I get close to the very end. But it’s time. I’ve had an unbelievable run, and it’s just time.”
Funk, who broke in as an NBA announcer 43 years ago, will work 52 of the Bulls’ 82 games this season alongside analyst Stacey King on NBC Sports Chicago. He will call all 41 home games and 11 road games, plus the preseason and any playoff games for which he may be needed.
That’s 10 fewer regular-season games than last season, when he initially reduced his workload while the Bulls employed a series of substitute play-by-play announcers, at least some of whom may be contenders to succeed Funk.
The Bulls plan to announce fill-ins for the 30 games Funk won’t call this season at a later date.
Funk replaced Jim Durham in 1991-92 as the radio voice of the Michael Jordan-led Bulls, then coming off the first title of their first of two 1990s three-peats. He succeeded Wayne Larrivee and Tom Dore on TV starting with the 2008-09 season.
“Whether listening to the radio or watching on TV, Bulls fans have always been able to count on Neil and his signature phrases to capture the excitement of the Chicago Stadium, the United Center and any road arena,” Bulls President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Reinsdorf said in a statement. “We greatly appreciate everything that he has done for the team and look forward to celebrating his accomplishments during his final season.”
Funk, who estimates he has called about 3,700 regular-season NBA games and roughly 240 postseason games in his career, is ambivalent about pomp and ceremony accompanying his exit.
“When I’m done, it’s done,” he said. “Look, the Bulls have been great to me. The city of Chicago has been great to me. I have no regrets whatsoever. None, period. They paid me on the 1st and 15th to do my job.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve had a lot of accolades or whatever, and a lot of people have been really good to me, so I don’t need that at the end. Whatever they do, they do. I’m sure they’re going to ask me and I’m going to say, ‘Eh.’ I’m a little uncomfortable in those kinds of settings.”
Funk grew up in Indianapolis, graduated from Syracuse and got his professional start in 1971 in Danville, Ill., broadcasting University of Illinois basketball and football games and Danville Warriors minor-league baseball games. (Incidentally, upon returning to Chicago in the ’90s, Funk would reprise his role as Illinois football announcer for a few seasons.)
He broke in an as an NBA announcer with Julius Erving’s Philadelphia 76ers in 1976-77, then worked for the Kansas City Kings before returning to the Sixers in 1982-83 for seven seasons. He spent three seasons with the New Jersey Nets en route to Chicago.
“Not only has Neil called games for some of the NBA’s greatest players, but he has had a career that makes him one of the NBA’s most trusted broadcasters of all time,” Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement, saying Funk has helped make “our broadcasts among the best in the league.”
Funk, who will turn 73 in late December, said the Bulls have been great as “the last couple seasons I’ve been having some feelings about having some finality to this” leading up to Wednesday’s announcement.
“It’s time to say, ‘That’s enough,’ ” Funk said. “It happens to everybody. The other day I was looking to see who was around from when I started doing NBA games, and there’s one (announcer) — Al McCoy in Phoenix — and that’s it. So it was just time.”
Funk is confident the Bulls will hire a strong successor.
“Whoever they bring in, I know it will be somebody good because the people they used last year — whether it was Jason Benetti or Adam Amin or J.B. Long or whoever they used — were terrific play-by-play guys,” Funk said.
“The only hope I have is that whoever they bring in is going to be here for a long time, that it’s not going to be a stepping-stone to something and that they’ll enjoy doing Chicago Bulls games as much as I did for as long as I did.”
Although his role as an NBA play-by-play announcer will be ending, Funk is hopeful he’ll remain connected to the team or business in some way.
“I’d like to do something to keep my hand in,” Funk said. “At some point in time I’ll probably try to sit down with Michael Reinsdorf and Susan Goodenow (the Bulls vice president of marketing and communication) and see if there’s any slot for me.
“I don’t want to be intrusive. I don’t want to be one of these guys who just hangs around to hang around. I’ve had some people talk to me about doing some consulting. I wouldn’t mind doing an occasional college game or something like that, but no more NBA.”
