ESPN Announcer Holds On to God’s Promises After Friend’s Death

Published: August 20, 2024

ESPN Announcer Holds Onto God’s Promises After Friend’s Death

By Movieguide® Contributor

ESPN play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch is holding onto his Christian faith as he mourns the death of his friend and colleague Bill Walton.

“Basketball legend Bill Walton, who led the UCLA Bruins to two national titles before winning two championships during his NBA career, has died at the age of 71 after a prolonged battle with cancer,” ESPN reported in May.

There will never be another Bill. Love you & miss you my friend. pic.twitter.com/JiVJyQHIO4

— Dave Pasch (@DavePasch) May 27, 2024

Pasch and Walton called games together.

“I’m his adversary on the air,” Pasch said of their working relationship. “I’m his teammate, but in a way I’m getting in the way of him accomplishing his goal kind of like Kareem on the floor. And then off the air when the game’s over we’re great friends. But for that two hours or whatever it is, there is a level of competition, as he views it, that is probably similar to how he viewed when he squared off against Kareem as a player.”

Walton’s death has been a heavy blow, but Pasch knows that grieving is part of the process. And as a Christian, he recognizes that death isn’t the end.

“But we’re called to be participants in the kingdom moving towards that day when, you know, all things will be made right,” he said on Sports Spectrum’s podcast. “So as Christians, we should grieve over death. And it’s horrible and it’s sad.”

“I was thinking about this the other day. I was talking to my wife. We were overseas traveling. I can’t remember how it came up, but it was almost like I’d forgotten for a second. You know, because I was thinking about something and was like, ‘Bill would love that.’…It’s something certainly as Christians we should be thinking about a lot because it’s not, you know, we shouldn’t look at death and collude with it and somehow feel like it’s okay,” he explained.

Pasch knows as Christians, we have something to look forward to when death approaches.

“You know, God wants to be with us and wants to be with us for eternity,” he said. “We have that assurance through Christ, and we need to hold onto that and live for that. And that’s the great news that we need to be thinking about and how we want to communicate that to others as opposed to some of the other things sometimes we tend to focus on when it comes to the Christian faith.”

For more inspiring sports stories, check out Sports Spectrum.

True belief in Jesus has been part of Pasch’s life since 2001 when he stumbled across a book about sin, judgment and God’s holiness at an airport.