Owensboro native Lance McGarvey’s career on the hardwood started long before he was recently named the new public address announcer for Louisville men’s basketball.
After nearly two decades in the industry, McGarvey was named the voice of the Cardinals last week after a few tryout games, including the Louisville and Kentucky matchup at the Yum Center.
McGarvey is just the third PA announcer for the Cardinals in 60 years but he won’t be just heard on the court as he’s already established on the pitch as the PA announcer for Louisville City FC and now Racing Louisville FC.
“I didn’t think the window of opportunity would ever open,” he said of the UofL job. “John Tong had done that job for 40 years and then Sean Moth took over and had it for 21 years. Sean, just really in his prime and never really thought anything about the opportunity even being available. I thought he would be here another 20 years but at that time, it’d be past my time so I’ve had a lot of enjoyment with other PA jobs, particularly my professional soccer job with Louisville City FC, which is huge and now Racing Louisville FC coming on.
“I’ve devoted a lot of passion and energy to that and that’ll continue but one of the things that did occur to me was I can’t pass the opportunity to make this effort to get this job. I’ve dreamed about this since I was 18 years old, since I came to Louisville to attend U of L, from Owensboro. I just couldn’t pass it up so I threw my hat in the ring and it turned out to work out great. I have enough passion for U of L basketball and all U of L sports to go around and still maintain that same commitment and excitement for Louisville City and Racing Louisville FC.”
The Early Years
For McGarvey, his sports career started when he was a ball boy for the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers under head coach Bob Jones.
“I was in the Sportscenter for all of my younger days,” he said. “In my day, we really didn’t have a lot of access to other college basketball. Kentucky wasn’t on television all the time, U of L was hardly ever on television in Owensboro so for me, it was Kentucky Wesleyan. I was a ball boy under Bob Jones when he was the head coach there in the late ’70s, traveled with the team sometimes. I went to every game. I didn’t miss a game in the Sportscenter for Kentucky Wesleyan from probably the time I was eight years old to the time I was probably 15 or 16. It was everything to me.”
It was then that McGarvey caught the bug of PA announcing as he got to listen to a KWC legend on a nightly basis.
“Glenn Young was the PA announcer for Kentucky Wesleyan for I think at least 55 years, maybe longer,” he said. “Hearing him, all those years, I really just had an affinity for what he did.”
Young was inducted into the KWC Hall of Fame in 2018 after 58 years behind the mic where he became the “Voice of the Sportscenter.”
It was Young that started McGarvey’s love but things don’t always work out like one hops as McGarvey had a small hiccup in his plan.
“I had an absolute terror of public speaking,” he said. “I was terrified. I didn’t want to talk in front of people, I was really intimidated coming from a small town. I never dreamt that is could ever happen because of me and the limitations I was placing on myself but I never imagined it. How it’s all developed had just been pretty amazing.”
McGarvey graduated from Apollo High School in 1987, as he says a year after Rex Chapman finished his career as an Eagle.
He said hoops were always good but the decade before he graduated was a strongpoint after Owensboro won a state basketball championship less than a decade earlier with Dwight Higgs now Red Devil coach Rod Drake.
“The fever pitch was high for high school basketball there and Mike Polio comes in and takes over Kentucky Wesleyan after a very nice run by Bob Jones but takes it to a whole nother level,” he said. “Put them on the national scene in Division II basketball in a major way and they had a tremendous success run in the 80s. Kentucky Wesleyan did a lot of great marketing to appeal to the people and get them out there.
“During those days, the Sportscenter was jammed packed. Nobody had that other avenue to get the basketball fix but sports in general in Owensboro is incredible. You look at all the amazing athletes that have come out of that city for the size that it is … But basketball is the king of it all and it always has been as long as I’ve been alive.”
He said watching Chapman became almost commonplace as he wasn’t aware of the impact when he was younger.
“When you’re in high school and you’ve got a guy like Rex Chapman, who’s a top-three player in country, it’s different now because of AAU basketball and all the academies and everything that they have,” he said. “Back then, when you grow up and basketballs so important and you have this team that’s on a national scene at that level. As a kid, you just don’t really realize anything different. Having someone like that, it was almost just like of course there’s the top-five player in the country in high school with us. When I look back, there were times I tried to take it in and I had a couple of classes with him.”
McGarvey remembers a time in class where Chapman was called away and when he returned, Chapman had a smile on his face and the class asked where he had been. Chapman responded that Michael Jordan had called and wanted to talk to him.
“It’s not supposed to happen but when you’re a kid, you don’t realize that’s not supposed to happen,” he said. “It’s just part of your life but I’ll never forget watching him play basketball.”
A Turning Point
McGarvey said there was a shift in his thinking in the early 2000s.
It was then that he realized he had to go out and do what he wanted to do.
“My father passed away in 2003 and I had three small children and some of those conversations in his last months about responsibility of teaching my kids to never let fear stop them from chasing their dreams and what they believe they could do,” he said “I knew I had a talent for it, or believed I had a talent for it, but a passion for it more than anything. I had to overcome that fear and literally that year, later on that fall and Christmas, I began announcing basketball for our church youth eighth-grade basketball tournaments and did it for free just to kind of get over that fear and just kind of get my chops going a little bit, get some experience.
“Within a year, one of the kids playing for IU Southeast, over in southern Indiana here, attended one of those games and he heard the game calling and he came over and said ‘hey, we need a PA announcer, would you want to do it?’ I said heck yeah, we’ll go do it but I was terrified but it was a fun experience. I did that for almost 10 years. All of that terror, all of that fear has subsided. Now I just get really, really excited and the adrenaline pumps and I can;’t get enough of that feeling. When it’s over, it’s always a little bit of a crash.”
McGarvey said he didn’t even apply for the PA announcing position for Louisville City FC as he met the director of communications he mentioned needing someone for the role.
While his knowledge of the game was minimal at first, McGarvey said it’s taken him places he never thought he’d go.
“That’s been a life changer for me,” he said.
Becoming the Voice of the Cardinals
McGarvey had a few tryout games earlier this season where he was able to test his mettle on the mic.
“It was exhilarating but at the same time, again terrifying in a lot of ways because there was no crowd,” he said. “There were basically 3,000 people in a 22,000-seat arena so you don’t get that energy that you kind of need to have a lot of times to feel in a comfort zone as an announcer. It was hard to believe, I kept pinching myself that first game against Prairie View. Then I got the callback.
“They invited me to do the UK/UofL game, I was blown away. Obviously growing up in Kentucky and being here in Louisville all my life, I know the significance of that game and I had to compartmentalize all those emotions and just go in and do the job but it was hard to, I have to say, to suppress a lot of that energy because I was totally super charged as much as I was trying to keep it on the down low and just do my work. It was just tough but a lot of deep breaths and a lot of take it slow, try to slow yourself down, calm yourself down. A lot of internal conversations to make that happen.”
Even though it occurred early in his time as an announcer, McGarvey said there’s one moment that already stands out.
“Definitely during the UK/UofL game, as much as I tried to compartmentalize all that, when you look to one side and you see head coach Chris Mack and you see that U of L Cardinal and you’re sitting in a chair just feet away from that dunking Cardinal bird at center court, now Denny Crum court,” he said. “I look across the way and eye level is head coach, the legend, hall of famer, Denny Crum. I’m looking across the court at him. I look to my right and there’s the Kentucky Wildcats and even though I’m a U of L graduate and a fan, I have tremendous respect for that program and there’s John Calipari who’s won a national championship.
“There were a couple moments during that game, I kind of let my mind drift a bit and let it try to set in but then it starts to overwhelm you and you got to go right back to just doing your job, you don’t want to miss a call. There were a few moments right there I thought this isn’t really happening.”
McGarvey went from a ball boy at KWC to an announcer at a youth basketball league to now being the voice of Louisville City FC, Racing Louisville FC and now his beloved alma mater as the voice of Cardinals men’s basketball team.
“It’s a pretty crazy ride,” he said. “I never set out to do that, I just wanted to have fun.”
