NEW ORLEANS – Alan Roach looks like he sounds. He is tall and walks with confidence.
His voice makes everything feel important. When roughly 117 million people tune into Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, Roach will represent the most obvious Colorado connection.
His deep, resonant pipes have become part of the sports soundtrack of our lives. He is working his 17th Super Bowl as the public address announcer.
“I remember waking up the day of Super Bowl 40 and thinking, ‘Oh my God,’” Roach told The Denver Post between rehearsals this week. “It will be the same on Sunday. I have been lucky to have a lot of pinch-me moments.”
Roach hails from Minnesota but has lived in Colorado since 1990. He has worked Rockies games and currently serves as the PA announcer for the Avs, Rapids and Minnesota Vikings.
Walk away from a Colorado sports event over the past three decades, and you are as likely to remember the introduction of “DAN-te Bi-CHETTE!” or “AV-al-LANCHE GOAL!!!” as a moment on the field or ice.
“He is the Barry White of all PAs,” former Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said this week.
White had the smooth voice of an earthquake. It is Roach, however, who left a music icon shaking as he prepared for his first Super Bowl in Detroit. Stevie Wonder was the pregame entertainment, along with young new artists John Legend and Alicia Keys. After a long practice run, Wonder sat at his piano, and staff checked in to make sure he was OK.
“I didn’t know that we were going to have God announcing for us today,” Wonder said.
Those wake-up-and-pinch-yourself moments? Yeah, this was one.
“It was incredible to hear that,” Roach said.
Roach, 58, follows a simple routine leading up to the big game. He travels with medication in case of a sore throat, but credits twice-a-day neti pot nose rinses for helping him to never miss an assignment. There are 10-hour rehearsals for the game day festivities, including the national anthem. About 10 minutes before kickoff, Roach will go over the names of the players for the Chiefs and Eagles.
“I don’t get nervous,” said Roach, crediting special events producer Bob Becker and his crew for making his work seamless. “I just make sure to write the names out clearly beforehand, then get them right 100% of the time.”
If only it were that easy. Roach brings a game to life. He loves football because he is involved in every play. He has the ability to speak to the world while making it feel like he is talking to an audience of one.
“Football is the most fun for me to do,” said Roach, who lives in Colorado and misses roughly six Avs games a year to work for the Vikings. “I am so into the game, just like a radio announcer would be.”
But hockey, for many, has become his sweet spot. His cadence and his call have become synonymous with the Avs, including two championship runs.
“Hearing him is like coming home to a Christmas dinner cooked by your mom. It’s your life, what you know. He has become part of the brand, part of the team,” said Altitude anchor Kyle Keefe, who hired Roach for the role years ago. “When I hear his voice on Vikings games, it’s almost like he’s cheating on us. And it’s just because he has become so synonymous with the Avalanche.”
He is so valuable to the Avs that he works their annual charity brunch for kids. It would not be the same without him.
“We have to have him there to introduce the players. Gotta have his voice,” said Steve Johnston, executive producer for the Nuggets, Avs and Mammoth at Kroenke Sports & Entertainment. “He is not a hype person. He brings the energy through his voice. He is just a total pro.”
Roach is so well-known — he’s also the greeting voice on the trains at DIA — that more than a few people have asked him to record their outgoing voicemail messages. He will only do it if they write out the script, and “It has to be funny.”
Alan Roach works as a KOA radio sideline announcer on the sidelines of the AFC Championship game at Invesco at Mile High on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)
It was never Roach’s dream to make a living as a public address announcer. Under his given name, Kelly Burnham, he started in radio before his junior year of high school in Brainerd, Minn., plugging in commercials during Twins games. His first PA gig was for the Triple-A Colorado Springs Sky Sox in 1990. That led to work in Denver, where he evolved into a staple on The Fox and as a sports reporter for 850 KOA.
Since 2015, he has functioned exclusively as a PA, his voice echoing at All-Star Games, World Cups and the Olympics.
If you want to know if an event is a big deal, just listen for Roach’s familiar baritone.
“I will get goosebumps on Sunday. And they come from ‘Are you kidding me? I am the one person in the world who gets to announce the Super Bowl,’” Roach said. “To have this opportunity, you can’t imagine how grateful I am.”
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