Wayne Larrivee and Larry McCarren are in their 27th year calling Packers games on the Packers radio network.
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Green Bay Packers fans have had 27 years to decide if they like Wayne Larrivee and Larry McCarren calling games. Turns out they do.
Larrivee and McCarren were voted the best local announcing team among the 32 NFL franchises in a poll taken by Awful Announcing, which, despite its name, recognizes good announcing, too.
The rankings were determined by grades from Awful Announcing’s readers, who were asked to rate announcing teams from A to F. Awful Announcing said more than 3,500 total votes were cast. It was the first time Awful Announcing ranked NFL radio announcers.
The Packers duo received the most A grades, 68 from 137 ballots. They also tallied 44 Bs and 11 Fs. They just beat Arizona’s team for first, 3.109 to 3.098.
The voters who commented tended to like Larrivee more than McCarren, wrote Awful Announcing’s Andrew Bucholtz, but as a team “the booth was still strong, with comments such as ‘an institution in Wisconsin’ and ‘These guys are higher grade than A.'”
The duo first worked together on the Packers radio network 27 seasons ago. McCarren has been doing Packers broadcasts since 1995. Larrivee arrived in 1999, after calling games for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1978-84 and the Chicago Bears from 1985-98.
Larrivee also has done play-by-play for the Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Kansas City Kings, Iowa Hawkeyes football, Missouri Tigers basketball, and Big Ten football and basketball for ESPN Plus.
He was named Illinois Sportscaster of the Year in 1997 and is a seven-time winner of the Silver Dome Award, presented by the Illinois Broadcasters Association for best radio football play-by-play. He is a four-time winner of a Midwest Emmy for Chicago Bulls basketball play-by-play. In May 2011, he was honored as Communicator of the Year by the Wisconsin Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.
McCarren played center for the Packers for 12 years, from 1973-84. He played in 162 consecutive games, which earned him the nickname of “Rock.” He was a Pro Bowl selection in 1982 and 1983.
After working as a sportscaster for Green Bay television, he joined the Packers’ digital department as an analyst.
McCarren was voted Wisconsin Sportscaster of the Year four times [1994, 1996, 2002, 2007] by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2016.
Contact Richard Ryman at rryman@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X at @RichRymanPG and on Instagram at @rrymanPG.
