Bill Baker, the Northern Illinois University football and basketball play-by-play voice for 44 years, plans to retire following the 2023 football season. (NIU photo)

Bill Baker, the legendary “Voice of the Huskies” who has become synonymous with Northern Illinois University Athletics since becoming NIU’s football and basketball radio play-by-play announcer in 1980, will retire following the 2023 football season.

The news was announced during NIU Athletics’ DeKalb Media Day on Aug. 15.

“There are only 133 jobs like this one in FBS level football in the entire country,” Baker said. “I have had the privilege of knowing, working with and for the absolute finest group of coaches, student athletes, administrators, support staff and fans you could ever hope for.  There are no words to describe my love for this place and for the time I have been able to serve as ‘the Voice of the Huskies’.”

Baker will call his 44th season of Huskie football in 2023. He has been behind the mic for 507 NIU football games since that initial game between the Huskies and Long Beach State in Anaheim, California on Sept.  5, 1980, missing just one game since that day. His basketball total — including several years when he called both men’s and women’s games – exceeds 1,200 games.

“I have absolutely no idea as to the number of games I’ve called for NIU,” he continued. “Between football, men’s and women’s basketball, some baseball, softball and even a little soccer, it has to be well into several thousand [games] and that’s not counting coaches’ shows and emceeing various events and banquets. The Huskies have been the biggest part of my working lifetime.”

NIU Vice President and Director of Athletics Sean T. Frazier lauded Baker’s professionalism, his passion and most of all, his ability to connect fans to NIU games, teams and student-athletes, through his broadcasts.

“Bill is the ultimate pro and the ultimate Huskie,” Frazier said of the NIU Hall of Famer. “Coaches, student-athletes, even athletic directors have come and gone, and Bill has been the one constant over the last 43 years. He has been the familiar voice of the Huskies, bringing to life the greatest games, plays and players in our football and basketball history to NIU fans around the world.  It’s an amazing legacy and we will celebrate him throughout this football season.”

Except for conflicts between football and basketball season, which have become more frequent this century with the success of the Huskie Football team, Baker can remember missing just one game, for the graduation of one of his two daughters in December 2002.

“When the late [NIU Athletic Director] Dr. Bob Brigham and his assistant, Jerry Ippoliti, hired me in May of 1980, they both emphasized that they were looking for stability and longevity in their broadcast voice,” Baker said. “Gentlemen, I think you got your money’s worth.”

His friends and broadcast partners alike know that family is the only thing that tops the Huskies on Baker’s priority list.

“My wife, Karen, and I just celebrated our 50th Anniversary and to think I’ve been with the Huskies, traveling to or through every state in the union with them for nearly all of those years; I never would have been able to do it without her love and total support, as well as that of my two daughters, Kim and Julie,” Baker said.

Over the years, Baker has seen – and described – it all. From a 97-yard kickoff return by NIU’s Mike Pinkney on the very first play from scrimmage he ever called in 1980, to three NCAA Basketball appearances by the NIU men’s team, to the magical 2003 football season and, more recently, to five MAC Championships at Detroit’s Ford Field and the Huskies’ historic appearance in the 2013 Orange Bowl.

Baker, who is also the media placement coordinator for the Kane County Cougars, was inducted into the media wing of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in April 2009. He earned the Illinois High School Association Distinguished Service Award for Broadcasting in 1989.

A U.S. Air Force veteran (1969-73), he returned to his native Chicago from Vietnam to begin a broadcasting career as a reporter, calling thousands of high school games before signing on with NIU.

NIU will honor Baker with an on-field presentation during the home opening football game versus Southern Illinois on Sept. 9. Fans will also have a chance to show their appreciation to Baker later in the season.