Burk '88 Offers Play-by-Play Olympic Coverage

If you’re tuning in to the Olympics, you may hear a familiar voice.

Pacific University alumnus Rich Burk ’88 usually spends his summers as the voice of the Hillsboro Hops minor league baseball team.

He’s on hiatus from the ball field, though, for a couple of weeks while he announces Olympic events for NBC Sports.

Burk is actually covering the games from NBC Sports’ headquarters in Connecticut, according to a recent interview he gave to the Hillsboro Tribune. Much of his coverage is on the network’s 4K channels, which aren’t available to most people — though he is doing a few events for standard TV.

“My most important job is to tell the stories of the athletes,” Burk told the Hillsboro Tribune. “That’s what we remember. Yes, we like gold medals and the opening ceremony, but the heart of the Olympics are the stories of the athletes.”

Burk has been telling the stories of athletes for years, in a variety of sports broadcasting positions. Most recently, he joined the Hops staff when the team moved to Hillsboro in 2013. That year, Pacific magazine featured his role as the voice of the Hops with a story and video.

Burk isn’t the only Boxer making an appearance with the 2016 Summer Games. Politics & Government Professor Jules Boykoff is in Rio, where he is providing analysis on the politics of the Games and furthering his research in the politics of sports.