When Joe Starkey became the voice of the Cal football team in 1975, he was the program's third play-by-play announcer in three years.

On the charter flight to Colorado for the 1975 season-opener, Starkey was approached by Don Mitchell, the president of San Francisco Federal Savings and Loan and an ardent supporter of the team.

"You're the third announcer in three years here. How long are you going to be here?," Mitchell said.

Mitchell was intending to have a little fun, but it's pretty clear it is Starkey who has enjoyed the last laugh. Forty-four years, 499 broadcasts, one history-making call and a Hall-of-Fame career later, Starkey has become the enduring presence of Cal football and is still in business in the broadcast booth named after him at California Memorial Stadium.

Starkey will take his usual seat in the Joe Starkey Broadcast Booth this Saturday night for his 500th career broadcast at Cal when the No. 24 Golden Bears host No. 19 Oregon.

"I don't know what Cal football would be without the voice of Joe Starkey," said radio analyst and former Cal quarterback Mike Pawlawski, Starkey's partner in the booth since 2012. "He loves Cal. If you haven't heard that in the broadcasts, you haven't been listening. He loves everything that the University of California, Berkeley, stands for. There is nobody more Blue & Gold than Joe Starkey."

Starkey was the voice of the California Golden Seals NHL franchise in the early 1970s when he started filling in doing sports reports on KGO Radio, the flagship station of the Bears. When the team needed a play-by-play announcer prior to the 1975 season, Starkey was offered the job.

The Seals moved to the Midwest to become the Cleveland Barons the following year, and Starkey ended up getting hired as the voice of the Colorado Rockies of the NHL. He moved to Denver but commuted to Berkeley and continued to do Cal games in 1976. The following season, KGO informed Starkey it wouldn't be able to continue to pay his way to fly in and out of the Bay Area and the sites of road games. Starkey stayed with the Rockies, and Cal hired a replacement for the 1977 season.

It didn't take long for Starkey to find his way back to Berkeley. Monty Stickles, a former tight end for the 49ers who was serving as Cal's radio analyst at the time, demanded the station re-hire Starkey. After missing the first five games of the 1977 season, Starkey was back as the voice of the Golden Bears. He's missed two games since.

"You think of Cal football anytime you hear that voice," said Andrew McGraw, Cal's head administrator for football who has served various roles with the program for nearly three decades. "It makes you harken back to the traditions of Cal football when you hear him. To have that common thread that connects the eras is kind of neat."

Starkey has many memories during 44 years watching the Golden Bears play, but he will unquestionably be remembered for his transcendent call of "The Play," the five-lateral kickoff return for a touchdown that lifted Cal to a 25-20 victory over Stanford in the annual Big Game in 1982. Starkey's spontaneous, sincere and emotional description of the play turned it into one of the most repeated pieces of audio in the history of sports.

Starkey first saw a video clip of The Play the evening of the game while attending a party with his wife, Diane.

"I was scared to death as I saw it unravel," Starkey said. "I was scared to death I did it wrong. One of the things that haunted me for a while was I felt I didn't give enough detail. Was I a moron for screaming and yelling like that? But by the time I heard it, people had said the enthusiasm overcame any other issues, and I'll accept that."

Kevin Moen, who received the final lateral in The Play and famously scored the winning touchdown by trampling Stanford trombone player Gary Tyrrell in the end zone, estimates he's heard Starkey's call over a thousand times and still talks about it with great enthusiasm. He and Starkey forged a bond afterward by recounting the story of The Play in the years that followed at various events and television appearances, and Moen still is a fan of Starkey's broadcasts.

"For me, the best part of The Play was the call Joe made on it," Moen said. "His call was spontaneous. It invoked the emotion of what occurred, how stunning it was, the excitement of it. Whether you see The Play visually or not, if you are in a room and you put on audio of that, it brings a smile to your face if you are a Bear fan."

As the years have rolled by with Starkey at the mic, he has not only become in tune with the football program, but the greater university itself. There are often moments during Cal broadcasts when Starkey will make reference to events taking place on campus, or comments about the culture and academic demands of the institution.

"Joe gives you a great Cal broadcast," said Raul Velez, who produced and engineered Cal football broadcasts for 12 years with Starkey in the booth. "When you hear Joe, you know it's a Cal broadcast. Joe is honest. He wants the Golden Bears to win. He's true to the Cal message and a promoter of the product, not only athletics but the university. He gives the Cal fan a great Cal broadcast."

Starkey will give another great Cal broadcast Saturday night for the 500th time, and next month he will be inducted into the Cal Athletic Hall of Fame. Starkey was selected for the honor in May.

"He still literally makes me laugh out loud on every single broadcast at one point or another," Pawlawski said. "He comes out of left field where he puts Cal football and whatever he's talking about together. It could be politics, music, movies – he'll just hit something out of the blue.

"Joe is a perfect broadcaster for Cal. He brings a wealth of diversity to the broadcast. It's an honor for me to work with him. He's just an amazing guy and a pleasure to work with. He will always be the voice of Cal football."