The genesis of one of the most distinctive voices in America, a deep, rich and authoritative baritone that greets people at Denver International Airport and has called dozens of memorable games for the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies and Avalanche began with an insult.
In his early teens, Kelly James Burnham would get called Phyllis.
“The story that I always tell,” said Burnham, who would later grow into a renowned sports broadcaster better known by his radio name of Alan Roach, “is that when I was a young teenager, just getting into my teens … the phone would ring at home, and I would go grab the phone and say, ‘Hello,’ and the person on the other end would mistake me for my mom.”
The indignity, he said, drove him to “figure out how to talk like a bear.”
Roach, 59, was a guest on the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with John Baggett last week, where the longtime Colorado resident shared with listeners his journey of how he became one of the most popular public announcing voices in the nation, as well as the voice of several sports teams.
Some have called him “The Voice of God,” and he’s currently the public address announcer for the Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rapids and the Minnesota Vikings, his native team.
From rubbing shoulders with Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Terrell Davis to traveling across the world to broadcast the Olympics, Roach’s road to become one of the most recognizable voices on TV and radio was not easy.
“There’s not many people that do what I do,” he said. “You have to give up your free time in order to do this stuff and you’re not being paid very well, but it’s really fun.
“It took me a long, long time to get to the point where I could build my resume, and I could build my contact list and get these jobs that did allow me to basically step away from radio, and all I do now is this.”
Baggett, himself a more than 40-year radio broadcast veteran, said Roach “is one of the great voices in our business.”
Radio Roots
In his career, Roach has been the public address announcer for 17 Super Bowls, Olympic gold medal hockey games and pro sports all-star games. He is also the public address announcer you hear in the mega-popular Madden NFL and FIFA soccer video game series.
Roach grew up in the small farming town of Slayton, Minnesota, before moving about four hours north to Brainerd, where he began his career before his junior year in high school, working for a local station.
“I was at a small-town radio station that did absolutely everything,” Roach told Baggett. “There was a period right after high school, I guess I worked at nine radio stations in four states in nine years.”
Roach’s radio name came as a result of his brother having the nickname “Roach,” earning him the moniker “Little Roach” while he was in college at Southwest Minnesota State University.
When he became a radio host in Denver, he became Alan Roach to differentiate himself from other on-air radio personalities named Kelly.
In 1991, Roach joined KRFX The Fox and became a staple of Denver drivetime radio, hosting afternoon and morning shows while he also began moonlighting as a public address announcer, first for the minor league Colorado Springs Sky Sox.
Doing live events would prove to be a saving grace as the radio industry changed dramatically in the late 1990s with the rapid corporatization of stations after the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which eliminated national ownership limits on radio stations and ushered in the age of Clear Channel and other conglomerates.
“That’s when everything went to being computerized,” Roach said. “Really, that’s when radio in what I did stopped being fun. I didn’t even do live radio like when I was doing the Fox, (working) at a classic rock station and doing the afternoons because of the way radio had changed with allowing companies to own more than one radio station.
“The next four years, radio just completely changed.”
New Career Path
Roach went from pushing play on every song, fielding phone calls, taking requests and providing regular news updates during his 3-7 p.m. shifts to being given the 14 songs that were going to play in an hour between recorded, scripted slots.
“When radio became so corporate, all I did was walk into a room and it was like, ‘Here’s your 14 songs you’re playing this hour,’” he said. “’You need to talk here, and you need to talk here.’
“So I’d say, ‘That’s the Rolling Stones. I’m Alan Roach, 103.5 The Fox. We got Foreigner coming up in a minute. Hey, be sure and join us this weekend for the big clown party downtown. We’ll be there Saturday.’”
“I would record a four-hour show in 12 minutes,” he said.
It was then that Roach realized the career he had been culminating on the side as a sports and live events public address announcer would carry him through the next part of his career and into the present.
In the early 1990s, he applied to become the PA announcer for Denver’s newest sports franchise, the Colorado Rockies. His application sat on desks for 34 months.
Two days before opening day in 1993, the Rockies asked him to fill the role.
“I know you’ve been applying for this job for 34 months, and now here we are 60 hours away from opening pitch and we’re going to ask you if you would become the PA announcer for the Rockies,” Roach said. “And I did, and I loved it, and I did it for 14 seasons. It was amazing.”
From there, he became the voice of the Colorado Avalanche in 2000. He has a signed jersey from all-time Avs great Joe Sakic, and witnesses two of the team’s three championships.
“An amazing ride,” he said. “They’ve been so good for so many of those 25 years, even though they didn’t win the (Stanley) Cup every year.”
Broncos To Vikings
The same year he started with the Avs, Roach became the voice of the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High.
“That’s the bread and butter of this town,” he said. “It’s a football town. It’s a Broncos town, and to be the announcer for the Broncos for 16 years was amazing. I can only think of one reason why I would have left the Broncos, and that would have been if the Minnesota Vikings would have called me and said, ‘Hey, we’re opening up a new stadium. Any chance you’d like to be our stadium announcer?’
“And I got exactly that phone call in 2015, and that’s when I left. So now I’ve done nine seasons with the Vikings, and I’ve done 17 Super Bowls.”
It was difficult leaving the Broncos, but the opportunity to work for his childhood favorite team was too strong.
“I love the Broncos, and I was a fan, and I wanted (them) to win every game,” he said. “But it’s still different when you grow up with it. The Broncos were a shirt and hat I put on. The Vikings are part of my makeup.”
To this day, he considers announcing for the Vikings his greatest thrill, calling himself the “biggest Vikings fan in the house” every Sunday.
Other than flying into Minnesota on fall weekends to work Vikings games or traveling across the world for major national and international sporting events like the Olympics, Roach’s life and career is largely based at home in Denver, where he still works for the Avs and Colorado Rapids.
He had become so ingrained in Colorado he became the voice of Denver International Airport. The public address announcements travelers hear on the airport terminal trains were recorded by Roach.
But they almost disappeared.
In 2018, airport officials, believing he had moved to Minnesota because of his Vikings gig, decided to reopen that job to find a Colorado voice. They created a contest to find the next voices of the airport, and it became a news story on local TV networks.
“I remember watching that going, ‘I didn’t move to Minnesota. What are you talking about?’” Roach recalled.
He called up the airport and told administrators, “I’ve been the voice of the airport for 12 years. I still live here. I live in the same house. I live in the house that I recorded the announcements on.”
Airport officials were surprised but said they had already moved too far ahead with the contest. It was too late to go back.
“I want to be part of your contest,” Roach said.
The airport had already chosen candidates to compete, but they allowed Roach to enter, as well.
“Nine months later,” he told Cowboy State Daily, “I won the contest.”
Contact Justin George at justin@cowboystatedaily.com
Sports announcer Alan Roach, left, on the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with John Baggett. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Alan Roach's "office" announcing Super Bowl LIX earlier this year. It was the 17th time he's been the stadium announcer for the Super Bowl. (Alan Roach via X)
Justin George can be reached at justin@cowboystatedaily.com.
