Posted by JustRamona on January 11, 2012 at 19:41:43:
Lepay earns seventh Sportscaster of the Year Award
Voice of Badger football and men's basketball is in his 24th year covering UW
From UWBadgers.com
Jan. 10, 2012
MADISON, Wis. -- Matt Lepay, the radio voice of Wisconsin football and men's basketball, was named the Wisconsin Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association on Monday. Lepay just concluded his 24th season covering UW football and is in the midst of his 18th year as the men's basketball play-by-play announcer.
Lepay, whose weekly blog, "The Voice," appears on UWBadgers.com and in "Varsity" magazine, was honored for the seventh time in his career. He has also won the award in 1997, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2009.
The only people in Wisconsin history to have won the award more times than Lepay are Jim Irwin, the former play-by-play voice of the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks and Badger football, who won 10 times in the 1970's and 80's, and Earl Gillespie, the former radio voice of the Milwaukee Braves and Badger football and former sports director at WITI-TV in Milwaukee, who won eight times in the 1960's and `70's.
Lepay has been the play-by-play voice of Badger football since 1993 and UW men's basketball since 1988. A 1984 graduate of Ohio State, Lepay was sports director at WTSO in Madison before joining WIBA in 1994. He previously served as sports director at WNCI in Columbus, and prior to that worked at stations in Athens and Piqua, Ohio.
Lepay, along with the other 2011 NSSA State Broadcaster of the Year winners, will be recognized at the 53rd annual NSSA Awards Banquet in Salisbury, N.C., on June 11. The Awards Banquet will also honor NSSA Hall of Fame Inductees Bob Costas and John Feinstein in addition to National Sportscaster of the Year Dan Shulman of ESPN and National Sportswriter of the Year Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated.