In addition to his USC work, Kelly hosted a sports magazine show, called games for the San Diego Chargers, the Lakers, the Clippers and he worked for CBS radio and ESPN. Kelly married Danusia in 1995 “He was a very happy man,” she said. “He could call any sport as if he had called it all his life.” He called games for five USC national championship football teams.įootball and basketball were his specialties, but Kelly was also “incredibly versatile,” Tessalone said. In 1980, he moved again to television where he remained until he retired. He called Trojan games on the radio through the early 1960s, then moved to KCBS-TV and returned to do Trojan radio broadcasts from 1973 to 1988. He would work with Hearn again when they both came to Los Angeles, where Kelly’s career took off, starting at KNX-AM (1070). He worked in radio markets in the Midwest, including Peoria, Ill., where he met and became friends with Chick Hearn and worked alongside him in 1954. Injured in the shoulder playing football at Northland College in Ashland, Wisc., he started broadcasting in college. He joined the Army at the close of World War II and was assigned to cook bacon on a Liberty ship. His mother was widowed when Kelly was 10, she said. Kelly was born in Minneapolis in 1927 to May Cosgrove and Lester Kelly, a railroad worker, said Kelly’s wife, Danusia.
