{"id":236905,"date":"2026-04-04T23:32:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/04\/why-march-madness-legend-bill-raftery-has-lied-about-his-age-since-he-began-his-career\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T23:32:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:32:52","slug":"why-march-madness-legend-bill-raftery-has-lied-about-his-age-since-he-began-his-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/04\/why-march-madness-legend-bill-raftery-has-lied-about-his-age-since-he-began-his-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Why March Madness legend Bill Raftery has lied about his age since he began his career"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I<\/span>f you’ve been watching college basketball for a while, you’ve surely heard Bill Raftery<\/strong>‘s iconic voice. Having been a color commentator for CBS Sports since 1983<\/strong>, Raftery has become synonymous with college basketball, March Madness<\/a><\/strong> and the NCAA Tournament<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As is the case during every tournament, Raftery is a common guest for interviews due to his outgoing and open nature. This time around, Raftery dropped a bombshell<\/strong> during one of those interviews, and it has to do with his listed age of 82<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Bill Raftery confirms he isn’t actually 82 years old<\/h2>\n

In an interview with Awful Announcing<\/a><\/strong>, Raftery revealed that he’s not actually 82 years old<\/strong>, as is listed everywhere. Apparently, his age was incorrectly estimated at one point in time<\/strong>, and the commentator never felt the need to correct anyone.<\/p>\n

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I don’t think I’m any different from many, many years ago. I just feel very lucky that I’m still doing it… I’ve never said my age and people wrote it down and have it wrong. I’ve never corrected anybody, but it’s actually comical. I’ve got a couple more on me. You’re the first to ever hear that. <\/p>\n

Bill Raftery, to Awful Announcing<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The only thing that’s known about Raftery’s true age is that his birthday is April 19<\/strong>. He graduated from La Salle University in 1963<\/strong>, which would mean that he was likely born in 1941. That would put his age at 85 years old, but no one knows for sure except him, his family and his close friends<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Raftery has no plans to retire anytime soon<\/strong>, despite his advanced age. He’s still doing a fantastic job calling games, as evidenced by his strong performances during this year’s tournament. He remains a fan favorite for many college basketball enthusiasts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been watching college basketball for a while, you’ve surely heard Bill Raftery‘s iconic voice. Having been a color commentator for CBS Sports since 1983, Raftery has become synonymous with college basketball, March Madness and the NCAA Tournament. As is the case during every tournament, Raftery is a common guest for interviews due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6808],"tags":[12599,63286,11366,10048],"class_list":{"0":"post-236905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-march-madness-english","9":"tag-matias-wodner-english","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaam-english"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}