The man who many would regard as the town’s most recognizable resident will make a giant career move west of Bedford next week.
West, as in Sacramento, CA.
Kyle Draper, a fixture at NBC Sports Boston since 2009, leaves Tuesday to become a television play-by-play announcer for the National Basketball Association’s Sacramento Kings.
“Bedford is every person’s kind of town. We feel like family here. I think that’s one of the things I’ll miss the most,” Draper said. “It has a relaxed feel, a comfortable feel. It’s sort of like that show ‘Cheers’ where everybody knows your name.” They’ve lived here for seven years; the TV studio was located off Middlesex Turnpike in Burlington until moving to Needham almost a year ago.
Draper’s wife and two kids, one at John Glenn Middle School and one at Lt. Job Lane School, will remain in Bedford until the end of the current school year, he said.
In Sacramento, he will be backing up lead broadcaster Mark Jones, a 30-year veteran who will also be handling a number of games at ESPN. Draper said he was guaranteed at least 32 of the Kings’ games as the play-by-play announcer. The regular season has been shortened to 72 games. Draper also will host the pre-game and post-game programs, which he has managed at NBC Sports Boston since the 2013-14 season. The Kings’ color commentator is retired player Doug Christie.
Draper said he learned of the opportunity in August, and subsequently had two interviews, one on Zoom and the second in person. He accepted the offer about a month ago. In Sacramento, Draper will be employed by the team. “I’m fully in the NBA now,” he laughed.
“It was a difficult decision,” he acknowledged. “I don’t really want to uproot the family and leave the area that has been so good to us,” he said. “But ultimately it was just too good an offer to pass up.”
One Celtic who is serving as a resource, Draper said, is General Manager Danny Ainge, who in his playing days was traded from the Celtics to the Kings in 1989.
The great country singer Hank Snow had a 1962 hit called “I’ve Been Everywhere,” and Draper may want to adapt those lyrics. A Philadelphia native, he earned his degree at Winona State University in Minnesota, worked in TV news and sports in Yakima, WA, and La Crosse, WI, and was a sports director at a major Louisville station before coming to this area.
“We have lifelong friends we have made here in Bedford,” he said. “There’s no doubt we will be back.” Over the years he also has been a leading local voice on diversity and equity, including leading off the first community Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast sponsored by Bedford Embraces Diversity.
For the past 11 years, Draper observed, “I became an expert on the Celtics. Now, in a short period of time (pre-season games start in two weeks) I have to become an expert on the Sacramento Kings. It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m a lifelong fan. It may be stressful but it’s doing what I love, which is talking basketball. It will be fun.”
“The great thing about the NBA,” he continued, “is that coaches and players come and go, and you build all these relationships. For example, on social media Isaiah Thomas gave the Kings a seal of approval for my hiring. The NBA is like a big family; everybody is sort of connected to everybody.”
He said the relentless pandemic complicated the process over the past four months. “Usually in these kinds of situations, you interview during the off-season. We could have traveled out there as a family and gotten the lay of the land.”
But the NBA season was interrupted for several weeks, and the so-called offseason will be only two months long. “Everything felt compressed, felt a little rushed,” he said. “But everybody’s dealing with it.”
Sacramento, he noted, doesn’t host top-level professional baseball, football, or hockey. “That’s one of the things that excited me about the position – because the Kings are the only team, there’s a tremendous passion. They have some of the most die-hard fans in the league.”
Draper said his years at NBC Sports Boston were special, and “I am sad leaving there, leaving the people and the relationships you built.” He reflected on his studio partnership with former Celtic Brian Scalabrine. “It was like a couple of people sitting there, talking sports. I’m glad Scal and I were able to do that.”
Mike Rosenberg can be reached at [email protected], or 781-983-1763
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