Billy Packer spent more than three decades working as a color analyst for television coverage of college basketball.
26 Facts About Billy Packer
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Billy Packer was born Anthony William Paczkowski in Wellsville, New York.
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Billy Packer's father Tony was an outstanding athlete in football, basketball, and baseball at St Lawrence University and was inducted into the university's Hall of Fame in 1982.
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Billy Packer was a graduate of Liberty High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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Billy Packer attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina from 1958 to 1962 and played guard on the school's basketball team for his last three years of college.
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Billy Packer led Wake Forest to two Atlantic Coast Conference titles and the 1962 Final Four.
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Billy Packer was a member of the Delta Nu chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity.
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In 1972, Billy Packer began his career in broadcasting in Raleigh, North Carolina, when he was asked to fill in as color analyst for a regionally televised ACC game.
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Billy Packer first worked at the network level with NBC and then CBS.
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Billy Packer covered every NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, including the Final Four from 1975 to 2008.
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In 2005, Billy Packer received the Marvin Francis Award for "notable achievement and service in coverage of the ACC," as reported by The Washington Post.
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On July 15,2008, CBS announced that Billy Packer would be replaced by Clark Kellogg on the network's lead broadcast crew.
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Billy Packer served as a color commentator for Putt-Putt Professional Putters Association television broadcasts.
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Billy Packer called the historic 1982 PPA National Championship, which featured 4 future Hall of Fame players among the 8 contestants.
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Billy Packer did play-by-play alongside McGuire for two games.
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Billy Packer was described as a broadcaster as "overbearing, arrogant, condescending, dismissive and petulant".
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Billy Packer was criticized for always telling fans what went wrong instead of complimenting players and strong play.
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Billy Packer purchased Picasso ceramics and displayed them in a makeshift plexiglass and plywood work desk he had created.
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Billy Packer once directed his interest to politics by approaching 123 random women, without identifying himself, and asked them if they would vote for Hillary Clinton.
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In 2006, Billy Packer again hit sports headlines after blasting the inclusion of mid-major teams in the NCAA tournament, when larger conference teams like Cincinnati and Florida State were left out altogether.
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Billy Packer's comments caused a backlash among fans of mid-major conferences such as the Missouri Valley Conference, which Packer had singled out for getting four teams in; and the Colonial Athletic Association, both of which ended up having successful tournament showings.
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Billy Packer complained on Selection Sunday that teams from these two conferences had won just one game between them in the past three years' tournaments, despite committee chairman Craig Littlepage repeatedly telling Billy Packer and his colleague Jim Nantz that past tournament performance was not a factor in determining the field.
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Billy Packer was the author of Hoops, Why We Win, and a number of other basketball books.
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Billy Packer was married to Barbara, and they had three children.
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In 1988, Billy Packer was inducted into the National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame.
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Billy Packer died of kidney failure on January 26,2023, in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the age of 82.