Bill Raftery and Ian Eagle have been calling games together for 30 years. Kevin Armstrong | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
To humor himself amid red-eye flights, two-week losing streaks and nights spent broadcasting in nearly empty arenas as play-by-play announcer for the Nets in the 90s, Ian Eagle, then a 20-something wunderkind, workshopped an impersonation of his partner, Bill Raftery.
The two were born a quarter century apart but grew close over the course of five years on the road together chronicling the hapless Nets. Eagle, a quick wit from Queens, and Raftery, a former Seton Hall coach from Kearny, developed an easy rapport rooted in rib-poke humor.
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About the Authors
Kevin Armstrong
Kevin Armstrong is an enterprise reporter and photographer for NJ Advance Media. His narratives have been recognized by the Society for Features Journalism, the National Headliner Awards, the Education Writers Association and the Society of the Silurians. He was an executive producer for “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” a Netflix documentary.
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