| No. 27, 28 | |||||||||
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| Position | Cornerback | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born | (1962-10-14)October 14, 1962 (age 63) Sterling Heights, Michigan, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) | ||||||||
| Weight | 175 lb (79 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school | Orchard Park(Orchard Park, New York) | ||||||||
| College | UCLA | ||||||||
| NFL draft | 1985: 7th round, 169th overall pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Ronald Dwayne Pitts (born October 14, 1962) is an American former professionalfootball player and current sportscaster. He playedcornerback in the National Football League for theBuffalo Bills andGreen Bay Packers, and playedcollege football atUCLA.[1]
Pitts has worked as asportscaster and entertainment reporter, and currently works forCBS Sports Network on itscollege football coverage as a fill-in play-by-play announcer, and as a co-host for the syndicated news magazineOK!TV.
Born inSterling Heights and raised inDetroit, Pitts is the son ofElijah Pitts, a running back withVince Lombardi'sGreen Bay Packers and later a longtime assistant coach in the NFL. The family lived insouthernCalifornia in the mid-1970s and moved to theBuffalo area in1978, where he playedfootball atOrchard Park High School and graduated in 1981.
Pitts played college football back in southern California atUCLA under head coachTerry Donahue.[2] Following his senior season in1984, he played in theJapan Bowl in January, where he intercepted aMike Tomczak pass late in the game and returned it 99 yards for a touchdown to seal the win for the West team.[3][4]
Pitts was selected in theseventh round of the1985 NFL draft and had a brief playing career in which he played for theBuffalo Bills and theGreen Bay Packers.[5] Injured in his first mini-camp, he missed the1985 season.[1] From1986 to1990, Pitts played 66 games atdefensive back,starting six times. He had seven careerinterceptions. One of Pitts's interceptions came off ofSan Francisco 49ershall of famerJerry Rice. In December1988, he returned a punt for a touchdown against thePhoenix Cardinals.[6]
After retiring as a player, Pitts pursued a career in broadcasting. Pitts first joined the newly-formed Fox Sports in 1994. Pitts served as an analyst alongside Kenny Albert (1994), Thom Brennaman (1995–1997) and Ray Bentley (1998–2000). Then, in 2001, Pitts was promoted to lead sideline reporter for the final season of thePat Summerall andJohn Madden pairing. Pitts was then placed back into the booth calling play-by-play of games working alongsideDwight Clark(2002),Marv Levy (2002),John Jurkovic (2002),Dave Krieg (2002),Tim Ryan (2003–2005),Terry Donahue (2006),J.C. Pearson (2006),Jesse Palmer (2006),Tony Boselli (2007–2008),John Lynch (2009–2010),Jim Mora (2011) &Mike Martz (2012). Following 19 years calling games as analyst, sideline reporter & play-by-play announcer, Pitts left Fox Sports following the 2012 NFL season and was later replaced byKevin Burkhardt.[7] He also co-hostedUnder the Helmet (a weeklyE/I program full of NFL-related segments for younger viewers) and formerFox Sports Net programsTotal Access (whose name was later adopted byNFL Network for its own newscast) andHardcore Football.
Earlier in his broadcasting career, Pitts worked as acollege football analyst forABC Sports and a correspondent forBlack Entertainment Television. In 2014, Pitts joined CBS Sports Network as a play-by-play announcer doing a limited number of games[8]
Pitts also had a cameo as a sports commentator in the filmHot Shots! Part Deux. He also appears as an alternate version of himself during the "Eggheads" episode of the American TV seriesSliders. He is also mentioned in the 1984Alex Cox movieRepo Man, in a college football radio broadcast heard in the background as the robbers bungle their way out of a store and just before the main characters walk in. He played a TV Reporter in a speaking role in the 1996 filmThe Birdcage.
Pitts' voice was featured as an announcer in Microsoft'sNFL Fever, a football video game for the original Xbox.
In 2008, Pitts was hired to host a new show on theDiscovery Channel namedDestroyed In Seconds. The show features video clips of disasters, accidents, and other destructive events, both natural and man-made.
His father,Elijah Pitts (1938–1998), was a running back for the Packers and was part of all fiveNFL championship teams under Lombardi, including thefirsttwoSuper Bowls. Ron Pitts is mentioned briefly as one of several players' children who visited the Packers' locker room inJerry Kramer's diary of the1967 season,Instant Replay.
He has two sons named Lee and Shea, who both currently play college football.
His older son, Lee Pitts, is a defensive back at Azusa Pacific University, while his younger son, Shea Pitts, is a defensive back at his father's alma mater UCLA. Shea wears #47, as his Father did, at UCLA.
His sister, Kimberly R. Pitts, DO, is a former power lifter and a physician in Southeast Texas.
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