How the 49ers’ radio broadcast is taking shape as Greg Papa battles cancer

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The voice 49ers fans hear on the radio for Sunday’s opener will have traveled more than 2,000 miles the night before — from State College, Pennsylvania, to Lumen Field in Seattle. 

“Fingers crossed, weather permitting,” Guy Haberman said. “Hopefully United Airlines holds up its end of the bargain. ... If you’re watching Penn State and you see a lightning delay, know that I’m freaking out.” 

Haberman, a sports broadcaster based in the Bay Area since 2012, will have to balance his typical Big Ten Network schedule — like the Penn State-FIU tilt on the eve of the Niners’ opener — as well as new duties for KNBR and KSAN, which air 49ers games on local radio. 

Haberman received the nod to serve as the primary fill-in play-by-play voice of the 49ers days after legendary announcer Greg Papa announced he was stepping away from the booth this season amid a cancer diagnosis. Haberman is part of a group of play-by-play men who will call games with color analyst Tim Ryan starting Sunday. 

“It’s going to be a challenge not having [Papa], but I don’t anticipate any challenges as long as they’re prepared,” Ryan told The Standard. “And I’m sure they will be. The flow of the game sells itself. I mean, this is such a great game. There’s so much to talk about, so much to see on any given play.” 

Joining Haberman on the broadcast team are wunderkind Jack Smith, versatile bilingual veteran Carlos Ramírez and college announcers Troy Clardy (Stanford) and Justin Allegri (Cal). 

The circumstances of their opportunity aren’t lost on them. 

“The Niners have a special place to me, and Greg has a special place to me,” said Haberman, 39. “It’s both of those things together that make it emotional.” 

Papa has been the radio voice of the 49ers since the start of the 2019 season. He’s been in Haberman’s life for longer, first as a voice he heard on television and later as a broadcaster at the same radio station. 

Born in Israel with a father who later joined the U.S. Air Force, Haberman moved frequently in his youth. He remembers his early years in Maryland, falling asleep to Jon Miller’s voice calling Orioles games on the radio. As a 6-year-old in Omaha, he wore Jose Canseco and Joe Montana jerseys. When his family moved to San Antonio, he watched Spurs games every night, with Papa on the call. 

Haberman’s Bay Area sports affinity blossomed as a high schooler in Davis. That’s when he started broadcasting, calling high school football games for the local television station. He worked at the Fresno State student radio station before landing a gig with 95.7 The Game, where Papa became a mentor. 

“As I started doing more and more play-by-play up here, I was doing stuff that Greg probably wasn’t watching,” Haberman said. “But then, one year I filled in on the A’s for Ken Korach a few games, and it mattered to me that [Greg] thought I was good at it. A lot. Because I think Greg is excellent.” 

Like Haberman, the precocious Smith found broadcasting in high school, albeit at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose after he was cut from the freshman baseball team. Smith grew up listening to KNBR on drives to school and just graduated from the University of Southern California, where he won the Jim Nantz Award given to the nation’s most outstanding collegiate sports broadcaster. 

Papa announced his cancer diagnosis publicly Aug. 1, so the 49ers scrambled to find broadcasters in short order. Haberman’s local ties gave him an in. Ramírez, Clardy, and Allegri working in the area made them natural fits, too. But Smith hasn’t yet worked in the Bay. 

Smith, who’s about to turn 22, spent his summer in Fredericksburg, Virginia, working in the media relations department for the Washington Nationals’ Low-A affiliate club. When their playoff run ends, he’ll return home to the South Bay. 

Whenever the 49ers call his number, he’ll make the commute from his childhood home to Santa Clara and put on the same headset his favorites like Papa, Miller, and Dave Flemming don. 

“Making it about myself is the wrong thing to do,” Smith said. “I know it’s a big opportunity for me and my career, and I very much value that. But I think what I really want to do is just prove that the Niners are right in trusting me and also just fulfill the responsibility that anyone in that job has: give the fans a good product, tell them what’s happening on the field, and tell them why it matters. And honor the legacy the 49ers have and especially Papa.”

Ryan, the color analyst, has worked with Haberman during the preseason but has yet to share a booth with any of the other fill-in announcers. They’re expected to tackle most of the season’s early games before Haberman steps away as his wife is expecting the birth of their first child in November. 

From there, Ryan will be joined by a rotating cast of Smith, Ramirez, Clardy, and Allegri. Continuity is any broadcaster’s friend, but Ryan isn’t fazed by a rotating cast of new teammates.

“I got one motto: If it’s not fun, I really don’t want to do it,” Ryan said. “So we’re going to have fun. We’re going to know our stuff, we’re going to be prepared and we’re going to have fun while we do the games.”  

The broadcasters remain hopeful Papa can recover and return to the booth as soon as he’s healthy enough to do so. 

“I’m not viewing it as, ‘Wow, this is this big springboard thing for me,’” Smith said. “I’m just trying to do a good job. The fans deserve that, the Niners deserve that and Papa deserves that.”