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    • Will Mike Keith be the next Voice of the Vols?
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    Will Mike Keith be the next Voice of the Vols?

    Eira Gwyneth Posted on

    Tennessee is looking for a new “Voice of the Vols” after announcing Thursday that longtime announcer Bob Kesling is retiring after the Vols’ basketball season.

    Kesling has been the play-by-play announcer for UT football and basketball since 1999, when he took over following the retirement of the late John Ward.

    Here are five candidates for the role of the next Voice of the Vols:

    Mike Keith

    Mike Keith has been the Tennessee Titans’ play-by-play announcer since 1999. He has worked for the franchise since it moved to Nashville in 1997.

    Keith, a UT graduate who idolized Ward as a kid in Chattanooga, has won the Tennessee Sportscaster of the Year Award 12 times. Keith began his career in Tennessee, working with Ward at the Vol Radio Network. He hosted daily sports talk shows in Knoxville for a decade and covered volumes for WBIR.

    STATION: It was chaos for Mike Keith when he heard John Ward’s calls during the 1998 Tennessee football season

    John Wilkerson

    John Wilkerson is the Vol Network’s longtime voice of Tennessee baseball. His game-ending baseball call, “Hello, Win Column!”, is beloved by Tennessee fans. The baseball play-by-play commentator also co-hosts the morning radio show SportsTalk on WNML.

    Wilkerson, a Knoxville native who graduated from Tennessee in 1988, also handles in-studio hosting duties for Tennessee football and men’s basketball.

    Roger Hoover

    Roger Hoover, a UT graduate, works full-time for Alabama’s Crimson Tide Sports Network. He hosts the football broadcast and calls play-by-play for basketball and baseball.

    Hoover has extensive experience in a variety of sports as a play-by-play broadcaster on SEC Network+ and ACC Network Extra. He spent 12 seasons broadcasting professional baseball, including five years covering the Miami Marlins’ spring training broadcasts. While working with the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, he was named the 2018 Southern League Radio Broadcaster of the Year.

    VACUUM CLEANER: UT Vols graduate Roger Hoover draws attention for the broadcast after a foul destroys a laptop

    He began his career at Vol Network in 2006 as a student.

    Neil Price

    Neil Price is the “Voice of the Bulldogs” at Mississippi State, where he is general manager of WMSV radio. Since 2017, he has been the radio play-by-play announcer for MSU football and men’s basketball.

    He served as a radio broadcaster for women’s basketball and baseball in Kentucky and was network manager for the University of Kentucky Sports Network from 2005 to 2017. He was broadcast coordinator at Middle Tennessee State from 2002 to 2005.

    He is an MTSU graduate and native of Morristown.

    Darren Headrick

    Darren Headrick is on the broadcast team at Kentucky. The UT graduate is the play-by-play announcer for Kentucky women’s basketball and baseball and hosts weekly coaching shows.

    Headrick’s career spans more than a decade in college and professional sports. Prior to joining UK, he worked as a TV and radio play-by-play announcer for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. He was named Baseball America’s Best MLB Broadcaster Prospect in 2015. He was also the East Carolina baseball play-by-play announcer from 2012 to 2014.

    The Maryville native has broadcast UT games on SEC Network+. He worked as an intern for the Vol Radio Network.

    Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you like Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription to access everything.

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    Eira Gwyneth
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