If you've ever listened to a Phillies game on the radio or watched Penn basketball on Comcast SportsNet or CN8, you've heard of Scott Graham.
But before his deep baritone voice found a home in front of microphones at the Palestra, Veterans Stadium and Citizens Bank Park, the 1987 College graduate was the voice of Penn football and basketball on WXPN and WQHS.
Since then, one of Philadelphia's premier sports media personalities has lived the dream life of anyone who has ever sat in his backyard wondering about that person inside the radio.
Graham has spent the last five years working with a true broadcasting legend, Phillies television and radio play-by-play man Harry Kalas. They split time in the booth on Phillies broadcasts, and Graham is full of praise for the man with whom he shares an office.
"It's been an honor and it's been a lot of fun," Graham said. "He's taught me a lot about a lot of things and I can't say good enough things about the experience."
And while Graham admits that his baseball broadcasting is "a work in progress," compared to nearly a decade in basketball, he has been witness to the remarkable rise, fall and rebirth of the national pastime in this city.
"It's been really gratifying, watching how everything has come together," he said of the Phillies' resurgence over the last few years, which has been centered around not only the construction of Citizens Bank Park but also a new spring training complex in Clearwater, Fla.
"This was certainly a vision on a blackboard in the back of somebody's mind seven years ago. ... You wondered if the day would ever come and here it is."
In his time calling Penn football, both as a student on Penn radio and a professional with CN8, Graham has seen many of the great Quakers teams in recent years -- and wondered just as much as many fans have why the Cornell game is always the last one of the season.
"Clearly, they could have been a team that could have competed at a national playoff level," he said. He also believes that, despite the views of some Ivy League presidents, the effects from a postseason appearance would be positive.
"Villanova is doing something along those lines. The University of Delaware, it's like their NFL team for the entire state. I don't know if it would do the same for Penn, but it couldn't hurt."
Graham has also done some work for Fox Sports calling Major League Baseball and National Football League games, and has recently begun working for NFL Films -- giving him one of the more diverse resumes in sports broadcasting.
"I had known [NFL Films President] Steve Sabol from interviewing him in the past, that type of thing," he said.
But Graham's greatest passion is for college basketball --especially the Big 5.
"I've done more of that than probably anything else in my life," he said.
"It's a completely different style from [baseball], but I've always loved college basketball, especially Big 5 basketball, especially doing games in the Palestra."
He needs no convincing of the Palestra's claim to being college basketball's most historic gym.
"Teams play each other harder in Big 5 games," he said. "There's some sort of strange mystique that a team can't seem to bury another team."
Graham particularly enjoys the Big 5 Classic, the annual tripleheader with all six area Division I teams which has only been played for three years but already feels like a city institution. He called all three games this year and last year, and two games in 2001.
"The Big 5 Classic has been a fantastic idea," he said. "If you're a college basketball fan in Philadelphia, I don't know how you don't go."
But what matters most to Graham is his family, and being able to do most of his work in this area has helped him keep his focus at home.
"That's kind of important, to be able to see your kids or be home for dinner," he said.
It seems safe to say that his family and the rest of Philadelphia will be seeing plenty of Scott Graham in the years to come.
