MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Although Mike Patrick never attended West Virginia University, many of his colleagues throughout college and professional sports thought he did because of his love of anything West Virginia. 

That included longtime broadcasting partner Kevin Kiley, who called the Athletics Communications office on Tuesday afternoon to pass along word that Patrick passed away on Easter Sunday in suburban Washington, D.C.

Patrick was 80.

He grew up in nearby Clarksburg before his mother remarried and moved to Northern Virginia when he was just 10. Mike remained in Clarksburg, living with his grandparents in the Chestnut Hills section of the city until he graduated from Washington Irving High.

Patrick, in 2018, recalled his childhood living in Clarksburg and his introduction to broadcasting when he met Jay Randolph right around the time he began attending high school.

"Clarksburg was a perfect little city," he said. "It was the glass capital of the world; there was full employment, and of course back then, I was so naïve I wouldn't have known the difference anyway.

"It was just a special place, and it had everything a kid like me could want. I just loved it."

Patrick was working on the chain gang at Hite Field during his freshman year at Washington Irving when he suggested to Randolph, then calling games on one of the local radio stations, that he could hold up cards to help him determine where the football was on the field.

Born out of that meeting was a lifelong friendship, one of many in Patrick's life.

"Jay was looking for someone to help him because when the ball gets inside the 10-yard-line, he couldn't tell exactly where it was," Patrick said. "Jay was always so nice to me."

Of course, like all West Virginians growing up in the Mountain State in the 1950s and 1960s, Patrick held a special place in his heart for Jack Fleming, the legendary "Voice of the Mountaineers."

"I thought he was the best radio play-by-play guy I ever heard," Patrick marveled. "He was just so descriptive. I had never been to a West Virginia game when I first started listening to him, and yet I knew exactly what the stadium looked like because of his descriptions. I knew what the players looked like. He just told you so much about a game, and of course, I loved West Virginia so much. He was wonderful to listen to."

Patrick had his heart set on attending West Virginia University, but because his grandparents eventually moved to Northern Virginia to be closer to his mother, he couldn't afford out-of-state tuition and attended George Washington University instead.

It was during his time as a GW student when Patrick discovered his calling in life.

"I was very lucky, because when I was a junior and I gave up my dream of playing baseball, I saw a sign that read, 'Do you want to work for WRGW?' They needed news guys, DJs and sportscasters and I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't that be fun? Just talk about sports.'

"So, I walked upstairs, and they said, 'We've only got 12 people working here, when do you want to start?' I did my first show that afternoon, and I had no idea what I was doing."

Patrick said Maryland, one of the other local colleges he was considering attending, had a huge radio and television program, and he would have struggled getting airtime because there were so many students involved in broadcasting back then.

He also recalled being a disc jockey doing a four-hour show each day. That's when he learned how to really think on his feet.

"You've got to say something," he recalled, laughing. "My problem was I had a four-hour show and those first two hours, damn, I was good! But I used it all up in the first two hours and those second two hours I was just awful. It was just time and temperature, that was it. But those first two hours … man, I was cooking!"

From there, Patrick eventually landed a job doing play-by-play for Jacksonville University where he began establishing himself as a sports broadcaster and developing a reputation as an up-and-comer in the profession.

"I got to be a homer doing play-by-play for Jacksonville University, and I got to say 'we' and 'us,' and God it was fun," he said. "I was offered a job at the ABC station in DC, channel 7 (WJLA), and I was offered it three different times. The third time the guy said, 'This is the last time' and I said, 'Okay, I'll take it.'"

It was during Patrick's time working in Washington, D.C. at channel 7 in the late 1970s when he became lifelong friends with Kiley, also an up-and-comer in the broadcasting world.

"I got hired on a fluke off the street, and I had never done a live television sports show before," Kiley recalled earlier today. "I was showing a lady there my (audition) tape, a guy walked past me and asked if that was me on the tape, I said it was, and he offered me a job. He said Mike Patrick was on vacation, and you can fill in for him on Saturday.

"Of course, I was scared to death, and someone asked me to introduce myself to Mike, and he was sitting behind his desk, and he asked me, 'Do you play gin?' So, we played gin for four or five hours before he did his show, and he tried to give me instructions on what to do because I had no idea what I was doing."

Kiley continued, "So, I go in the morning on Saturday for a six o'clock show and I was totally lost and just flopping around. Well, he came in when he was supposed to be on vacation, and he sat there with me and got me through that first show. That was the beginning of my career, and he kind of watched over me after that to make sure I didn't fall off the chair while doing my sportscasts."

Eventually, the two did ACC football telecasts on Jefferson Pilot and, later, both became well-known on ESPN in the late 1980s when the network's college football coverage was rapidly expanding.

Patrick turned into one of the network's top play-by-play announcers, while Kiley was the lead analyst on ESPN Saturday night college football telecasts.

Patrick recalled being offended by ESPN's initial offer to try and pry him away from ACC football telecasts.

"ESPN called and the guy said, 'We want you to do college football, and we will pay you $100 per game,'" Patrick chuckled. "I said, 'This must be a bad connection because I thought you said $100 per game.' It was unbelievable and I told them no. I said, 'Look, I'm not walking across the street for $100, let alone work … and they wanted us to be on site from Wednesday through Saturday. That was $20 a day!"

Eventually, Steve Bornstein struck a deal with Patrick and his role with ESPN grew as the network began acquiring more college football and basketball inventory.

By the early 1990s, Patrick was one of the network's most recognizable broadcasters, especially when he added professional football.

"You stumble into stuff," he said modestly. "I got to do everything I wanted to do. It was wonderful.

"I was so thrilled to do whatever I was doing that I didn't care about the other stuff," he added. "If I was at a game, it was the most important thing in the world to me. I got to do 30 ACC Tournament championship games and every one of them was the most special thing in the world. People were living and dying with each shot, and I felt like I was supposed to be doing the same thing for them."

Patrick was never a homer, but he admitted that some of the West Virginia games he called for ESPN over the years were excruciating, especially one particular game in Morgantown in 2007.

"I was never going to be accused of favoring West Virginia, ever," he pointed out. "My job was to be 50-50, and I probably did the games 60-40 against them because nobody was ever going to say, 'Oh, I hear it in your voice. You were rooting for them!' My heart was, but I wasn't going to let that happen.

"Well, the Pitt-West Virginia game, when Pitt beat the Mountaineers and denied them a chance to go to the national championship game, after it was over and we were off the air, I walked into an empty room when people were filing out of the press box, and I just started screaming. It absolutely killed me.

"That was the most difficult time I ever had handling my emotions," Patrick admitted. 

"I did games with people who were such homers that they couldn't even breathe when things didn't go their way, and Mike was not one of those guys," Kiley said. "Mike loved West Virginia, but you would never hear it on the air. Mike was 100% professional."

Patrick retired from ESPN in 2018 after spending 36 years with the network.

Kiley said he was with Mike at the hospital recently as his health began declining and was asked by his wife Janet to take home some of his clothes.

"It was all West Virginia stuff," he said. "He never let go of his loyalty and love for West Virginia. He absolutely, 100% was a Mountaineer."