Jennings "Jay" Randolph Jr. (born September 19, 1934) is an American sportscaster whose career has spanned more than fifty years.

Early life and career

The son of U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph, he grew up in

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

, attended The

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

from 1952 to 1956, where was a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity. As a young man he enjoyed considerable success as an amateur

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

er. He played on the Golf Team at

and was inducted into their Athletic Hall of Fame in 1978. In 1958, Randolph began his broadcasting career as an announcer and sports director for a Clarksburg radio station.

Career in St. Louis

Following

play-by-play In Broadcasting of sports events, sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as a sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real time (media), real-time live commentary of a game or event, traditionally delivered in the present t ...

stints with the West Virginia Mountaineers in the late 1950s, and the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...

and

SMU Mustangs The SMU Mustangs are the sport, athletic teams that represent Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas, United States. SMU was founded in 1911 and joined the Southwest Conference, competing against Baylor Bears, Baylor, Rice Owls, ...

in the early 1960s, Randolph went to St. Louis. He served as a staff announcer at KMOX radio in 1966, and as announcer and sports director for KSD (later KSDK) television from 1967 to 1988. At KSDK (Channel 5), Randolph anchored sports coverage for the station's newscasts and called TV play-by-play for St. Louis Cardinals baseball (as well as the first season of St. Louis Blues hockey in 1967–68). Randolph served as the over-the-air TV voice of the Cardinals for 21 seasons, split over two stints. He had a 17-year stint in the Cards' TV booth that ended after the 1987 season when the station lost the local rights, but was brought back in 2007 when KSDK got its small part of the TV pie, which ended in 2010. He does the "Randolph Report" on KFNS (590 AM) radio.
Posted October 1, 2010, last referenced October 3, 2010.

NBC Sports

Randolph also worked for

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division for NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on their broadcast network NBC, the Cable television, cable channels NBC owns, and on Peacock (streaming service) ...

television in the 1970s and '80s, announcing a wide variety of events including the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

and

LPGA The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly ...

golf, the

Professional Bowlers Association The Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) is the major sanctioning body for the sport of professional ten-pin bowling in the United States. Headquartered in Mechanicsville, Virginia, and currently owned by the Lucky Strike Entertainment Corpor ...

, and three

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

and the

Breeders' Cup The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Graded stakes race, Grade I Thoroughbred racing, Thoroughbred horse races, operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was ...

Later career

Randolph called play-by-play for baseball's

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...

in 1988 and

Florida Marlins The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. The team plays its home games at LoanDepot Park. The ...

from

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, and hosted the Marlins' TV pregame from

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

. He later broadcast golf events for

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

and

The Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply "Golf" or "NBC Golf") is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently ba ...

. From

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

he called St. Louis Cardinals games on KSDK television. On October 2, 2010, the day before his final Cardinal broadcast, he was honored by the team by being selected to throw out the ceremonial first pitch to longtime friend and broadcast partner Mike Shannon. In 2011, Randolph worked as a features reporter and interviewer for Cardinals broadcasts on Fox Sports Midwest. Randolph was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2005, Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Missouri Broadcaster Association Hall of Fame in 2012.

Personal life

Randolph's son, Jay Jr., formerly provided commentary for the PGA Tour Network on

XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XM) was one of the three satellite radio ( SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable ...

, and hosted a sports-talk show on KFNS radio (590 AM) in St. Louis. He also appeared frequently on KFNS 590 AM) in St. Louis. Jay Jr. died from cancer in 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Randolph, Jay 1934 births Living people American Football League announcers American horse racing announcers American sports announcers Olympic Games broadcasters Bowling broadcasters Cincinnati Reds announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Dallas Cowboys announcers Florida Marlins announcers George Washington University alumni American golf commentators Major League Baseball broadcasters NFL announcers National Hockey League broadcasters People from Clarksburg, West Virginia Jay St. Louis Blues announcers St. Louis Cardinals announcers St. Louis Cardinals (football) announcers Tampa Bay Buccaneers announcers Miami Dolphins announcers