Magic Play-by-Play Announcer David Steele retires

A legendary career behind the microphone coming to an end. The longtime voice of the Orlando Magic David Steele announcing his retirement this week after 37 years and we are so excited to be joined by the one and only David Steele joining us live in our streaming studio here this afternoon. David, thank you so much for taking the time and coming to talk with us today. Well, thank you for having me. So 37 years, quite the career. We're going to get into that. But I just want to get your thoughts on the decision-making process. Was it kind of hard to come to that point and say, yes, I'm ready to retire, or did you know it was time? You know, I had heard that you'll know when it's time, just what you just said. And for the last couple of years, I've been thinking about it. I hit 73 years ago almost, and I think that might be a benchmark that has a lot of people thinking about whether they want to keep going, how much farther you want to keep going, et cetera. The Magic graciously allowed me to pull out of the road a little bit. I cut back on road games for the last several years, which I think maybe helped prolong the situation. But near the end of this season, I felt pretty strongly that the time was right to put down that Magic microphone and enjoy life a little bit while I can and me and my family. What has the reception been like to your announcement? I imagine you've had an outpouring. Unbelievable. And I didn't see it coming. I just did not. It caught me by surprise. I've been describing it. I've been drinking water out of a fire hose for the last couple of days, trying to keep up with all of the comments, the texts, the phone calls, the emails. It's been gratifying. It's been overwhelming. It's just really, really amazing and very heartwarming. I would imagine it's also a time, too, that you do some reflection of your own on the past three and a half decades. True. It's true. Because you work, you're kind of just getting started, but you'll work for many, many years and you just kind of keep your head down and do the best job that you know how to do it. And then you look up at one point and it's time to say goodbye, and then you start really thinking about what you've been doing for the last, not just 37 years, but I had a career before that, 51 years, actually, in work. I graduated from college in 1975. My wife and I, we got married our senior year, we're high school sweethearts, got married our senior year in college, graduated from the University of Georgia on a Friday, and on Monday after that, I was on the air in Panama City on the ABC affiliate doing sports and news, weather, I did one weather cast, but did that for a few years, and then Asheville, North Carolina, local sports, Western Carolina, play-by-play, the University of Florida Gators for seven seasons, and then the Magic called, and 37 years. Here we are. When you first started with the Magic, did you ever envision a 37-year career and being that iconic voice of that team? I never looked at it that way. I don't think I really thought about my job in those terms at any point. I was open to, you know, if somebody came along with a golden offer somewhere nationally or some, you know, huge market that I would listen, but it really never happened. I had opportunities, but nothing that was attractive enough to leave, so I'm kind of a, you know, I like stability, I like the idea of working with good people. When you find a place to work that you really like the people you work with and you respect the ownership and the leadership, then you're in a good spot, and I feel like I've had that really my entire career, especially with the Magic. You know, you touched on being the voice of the Florida Gators for a while and your start in local TV as well. Talk to me about how and when you knew you wanted to enter that business and try this and do this for a living. Was it something you knew since you were a kid, or kind of when did that come along? No, it's interesting. I guess some might find it interesting, some might not, but I was just a kid that played all the sports. I was pretty good. I played a little basketball in high school, baseball in high school, college baseball. I got a scholarship to a small school in Tennessee, and I realized my sophomore year in college that the major leagues were not in my future. I batted my weight, which at the time was 155, and a weak field, a weak hitting, a good fielding shortstop was, you know, the major leagues were not in my future. So that's really when I started thinking, what could I do? And I thought about sports writing. I thought about maybe advertising, something creative. And I just walked into the campus radio station at the University of Georgia and asked if they had anything that I could do, and they made me the sports director. Nobody really cared about the sports director at a campus radio station in the 1970s. So, you know, they had all their music and all that stuff. So I was the sports director on the campus radio station, and that's how I got started. I did some play-by-play with the baseball team, you know, setting up all the equipment and doing the play-by-play, the junior varsity basketball team back then at the University of Georgia. And the first time I did play-by-play, I felt like this is something I can really do. I felt like I had a knack for it. It might be because I grew up listening to great radio play-by-play announcers with a transistor radio under my pillow going to bed at night, and that's probably what soaked into my brain. And when I had a chance to start doing it, it just kind of fell into place for me, and things moved on from there. So you had some role models. Oh, yeah. Some idols there. Sure. My dad was a University of Kentucky graduate. So am I. Yeah, yeah. Go Big Blue. So my mother and father were both from Kentucky, southeastern Kentucky. And the play-by-play announcer when I was a kid for the Wildcats was K. Wood Ledford. And I lived in Knoxville. This is kind of crazy, but we were all over the SEC a little bit when I grew up. But I lived in Knoxville. So I also was a Tennessee fan, and John Ward was their play-by-play guy. And those two guys, those two men, they were really at the top of the profession when radio play-by-play was a big deal because games weren't on TV all the time. So I would go to bed at night with that little transistor radio under my pillow listening to those guys and AMOX, the clear channel 50,000 watt stations in St. Louis and in New York and Chicago and listen to those play-by-play guys. So that's where I grew to love, especially radio play-by-play, which is just a lot of fun to do. What are you going to miss the most about being the voice of the magic? Well, the games, obviously. I wouldn't say that's the most, though, because it's more about the people that I've met and become friends with and have great relationships with in the organization, outside the organization and around the NBA with other teams. Just so many people have come across my path. And I've got great friends, especially within the magic organization. I think it's the people, just the time that you spend talking to people and coaches, players before and after games, referees, getting to know them and about their families. You know, it's 37 years. And if you communicate with people, you get to know a lot of different folks. And so even people in the security folks, the people that check your bags when you come in, have been doing it for almost as long, probably, or some as long as I did the games. So I'll miss those people. I'll miss the relationships. And hopefully a lot of that will continue. Do you have a favorite moment that you experienced behind the microphone? I do. And it's been played a few times here in the last few days. I was doing radio at the time, not television. So I was able, as the radio announcer, to do the NBA Finals in 1995. TV, you get cut out of the playoffs late in the playoffs. So I'm doing television. In 2009, I didn't do the NBA Finals in Los Angeles against the Lakers. But in 95, I was able to broadcast because on radio of all the NBA playoff games. And game one against Chicago, Michael Jordan had just come back from his hiatus playing baseball. And the national media was convinced that the Bulls were unbeatable with Jordan, which, you know, no reason to believe that was not the case. The Magic, we had a young team. Shaq and Penny were, I believe, 23 and 22, maybe a year older than that. But I don't think anybody expected Orlando to beat Chicago. And Chicago was going to win game one. They had the lead. They had the ball. And Nick Anderson made a deflection from Michael Jordan. And the Magic picked it up. Long pass down. Harris Grant dunks the ball with six seconds left. And Orlando steals game one, goes on to win that series. I don't think they'd have won that series if not for winning game one, because, you know, the psychological effect probably would have been overwhelming. But that was a great play and an incredible situation. The crowd was just, you know, berserk. And I felt like I had, you know, a good call on it, too. So when I hear it, you know, that it was just a great moment. I've seen a lot of changes in 37 years. The game has changed a lot. The technology has changed a lot. What stands out to you as, you know, some of the biggest changes over your career that you went through? You just said, you said a mouthful there. I mean, it's basically in every way. The NBA, professional sports, I mean, the world, everything has changed with media, internet, streaming channels, 24-7 almost. Yeah, everything has changed. I would say just the size of it all. The Magic staff in 1989 may have been 20 total, including basketball staff, coaches, you know, a head coach and one assistant coach and a video guy and one trainer. I mean, you know, there was a sales guy. There was an accounting guy. There were not departments. There were people that handled those roles. Now, all around the NBA and all around pro sports, you have just hordes of people that are employed by these pro sports teams because the money has come pouring in with television rights fees continuing to rise. So, it's just a whole different world. It was like a mom and pop league in operation in 1989, and now it's big-time corporate sports and business. What are you most looking forward to in retirement? My family, more time. My wife, who I mentioned, will celebrate 52 years of marriage, happily married for a long time. She sacrificed an awful lot with raising our three kids when I was on the road a lot, so she deserves a little bit more of me. We've got eight grandkids who are involved in all kinds of activities, a lot of sports, which will be fun. I've not been able to totally focus on that because you get the Magic schedule out, and you're locked into those days, so travel is not a possibility. We have children and grandchildren that don't live in Orlando, and now we'll have an opportunity to spend a little more time with all of that. Because as much as you love doing what you're doing, I would imagine it still can be a grind at times when you're talking about the length of an NBA season. Yeah, and the travel. People don't see that. They don't see getting in after a game to the next city at three o'clock or four o'clock, and then many times you'll have a back-to-back, and you have to get up, and we have a production meeting at 10, and the preparation that I went through was pretty elaborate to get ready to broadcast a game. So yeah, it takes a toll on you for sure over time, all that travel. Those late nights are not real healthy for the human body over time, so yeah, that's definitely part of it. It does wear you down a bit. Well, Dante has big shoes to fill. Do you have any advice for him? Have you given him any sort of message? No, we talk a lot. He's one of my dearest friends. I'm really happy for him. Several years ago, like I said, when I stepped away a little bit for some travel, the idea was to give Dante a crack at it and see how he would do, because obviously I wasn't going to be around forever. The Magic, it's an organization that likes to promote from within if possible. That's just the way the organization operates. I think it's a good thing. Employees that work for the team understand that, and that's a motivation for everybody. So Dante did a great job. He's gotten better and better, and we've had conversations about just little things about the craft, and he's a sponge. He really soaks it in. He already has all of the tools, the personality, the brains, the sense of humor, the knowledge of the sport. Play-by-play is a different skill than hosting a show or interviewing people. It's a whole different deal, but I think he's going to do great. I predict we'll have a very long and productive run as the play-by-play guy. Play-by-play isn't easy. You made it look easy all these years. You did a great job at it. Magic fans are going to be so sad to see you go, but what do you want Magic fans out there to know as you hang it up after all these years? Well, I hope they know, and I want them to know that I love them, that they are the greatest, that they have been supportive of me and of the team for 37 years. It's interesting. It's a different iteration of Magic fans. Having been here 37 years, the early ticket people and people that went to the game and watched, a lot of them are now no longer involved. They're not really that interested in it anymore. They're retired and moving on to other things, but their kids and their grandkids have come through now, and that's two and three generations of Magic fans. That's how you build a great franchise. It takes time. I would just say the Magic fans, they love their team. They're passionate, and I just appreciate their support. David Steele, longtime voice of the Magic, congratulations on the retirement. Thank you so much for coming in here and spending the time. It's been an honor to have you in here today. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it.