The Carolina Panthers will lose their voice tonight, and with it leaves a legacy
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It’s 9:30 a.m. on a recent Sunday morning in the press box at Bank of America Stadium and Mick Mixon has already been here for more than an hour — nearly five hours before kickoff.
Most players hadn’t even arrived yet. The grounds crew was still putting the final touches on the playing field. A singer, who was set to belt out the national anthem, was performing a mic check. Security guards were just taking their posts.
As the Carolina Panthers’ play-by-play man, Mixon enjoys these moments, watching the games come alive. He’s called every game — home and away, wins and losses, meaningful and insignificant — for the past 17 years. He has the been the eyes of Panthers’ fans who listen to the radio broadcast. He has described every scene and every play of every game since the 2005 season.
And Sunday afternoon, when the Panthers play the Buccaneers in their Week 18 season finale at Tampa Bay, it will also be Mixon’s finale as he gets ready to retire.
Mixon, 63, could do this job for much longer. His energy is as contagious as it was when he first joined the Panthers.
To stay active, he’ll run up and down each section of the Panthers’ stadium’s upper deck once a week. He’ll run up a flight of steps and do 15 pushups. He’ll run back down, then run up another flight. He’ll do 15 more pushups until he’s circled the entire venue.
Calling games has been Mixon’s dream job for as long as he can remember. It’s what he’s wanted to do ever since he was growing up in Chapel Hill.
More than anything, he loves the people and the stories he has heard told rather than the touchdowns.
In Mixon’s 17 years, the Panthers have made six playoff appearances, won four division titles and made one Super Bowl. He’s interviewed and followed the careers of Cam Newton, Luke Kuechly, Jake Delhomme, Steve Smith, Julius Peppers, Greg Olsen and Christian McCaffrey.
But it’s time, he says. He believes there’s more to life than work. He’s ready to just be a fan and spend time with his wife and grandchildren.
“I always knew I wanted to get it into my early 60s and then step away,” Mixon said, “and let somebody else take it and let another man or woman experience what a joy it is.”
As more people arrive in the press box throughout the morning, it becomes clear how much Mixon meant to people who know his voice. They all stop to speak, and he greets them with a smile, often with a story to tell.
He’s quirky. Warm. Inviting. Wearing a gray suit that appears to be one size too big.
“He’s gonna be hard to replace,” said former Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis, who met Mixon when they were both rookies on the team in 2005.
“Just his knowledge of the game, his play-calling and being able to go out and make the game enjoyable and fun for people to listen to.”
Hiring Mick Mixon
Before the 2005 season began, Henry Thomas, the former director of broadcasting for the Panthers, had one task: Find the replacement for Bill Rosinski, who had held the Panthers’ play-by-play job from 1995 to 2004.
Then-Panthers owner Jerry Richardson told Thomas that he wanted him to find someone who would be a good ambassador for the Panthers.
Someone who could make “the smallest fan feel just as important as the biggest fan.”
A co-worker recommended Thomas look at Mixon, who had been the color analyst at the Tar Heels Sports Network for the previous 15 years.
As a UNC-Chapel Hill grad, Thomas was familiar with him.
He reached out. Mixon told Thomas that he’d only want to apply if the Panthers were serious. They were.
Mixon drove his dark green 1993 Dodge Ram pickup truck up and down I-85 and I-40 from Chapel Hill to Charlotte. After the first interview with the Panthers, he realized he wanted to be there.
Thomas said he received multiple letters from people advocating on Mixon’s behalf. One was from an ACC referee, who said Mick Mixon was the only ACC broadcaster who had ever reached out because he wanted to learn more about rules so he could explain it to his audience.
Another letter came from a medical staff member at UNC Hospitals. This person said Mick had reached out to learn more about a medical diagnosis so he could explain it on air.
Thomas received notes from others, too, including former UNC players, and other places Mixon had worked and made an impression.
“Once I looked at all the evidence on paper and put the whole story together, it became a no-brainer,” Thomas said. “He was the exact right person for the job at that time. And I’ve never regretted it.
“I consider it one of my best career accomplishments.”
When Mixon became the Panthers’ radio play-by-play broadcaster for the 2005 season, he joined color commentators Eugene Robinson and Jim Szoke in the booth. The trio worked together for 13 seasons.
Together, they’ve shared some of the most memorable calls in Panthers history, including Jake Delhomme’s game-winning touchdown pass to Dante Rosario as time expired in the team’s season opener against the San Diego Chargers in 2008.
Mixon: “(Nick) Goings to the left, two receivers to the right. Jake Delhomme has the snap, fades back, rolls out, pumps once, now throws in end zone. And it’s caught! Touchdown! Dante Rosario! In the middle of the end zone.”
Mixon has always been different than other broadcasters. He isn’t flashy. He doesn’t have a booming or deep voice. He isn’t known for any catchphrases. He doesn’t draw attention to himself.
But he has a way of connecting with listeners.
“Mick is a great storyteller,” Robinson said. “He always starts off like — It’s akin to Alfred Hitchcock or Rod Serling of the ‘Twilight Zone.’ They set up the story and they let the story take place. Mick does that every time.”
Delhomme said the same.
“He’s so magical in his description, you feel like you’re there,” said Delhomme, who has served as a color analyst the past three seasons.
Said Szoke: “And it’s the way in which he does it. It’s just a kind of down-home kind of way that he speaks. I jokingly refer to him as like Garrison Keillor. He’s just got that folksy, down-home easy, comfortable style that draws you in.”
Then there was Cam Newton’s game-winning 26-yard touchdown pass to Greg Olsen in the 2015 season, when the Panthers went to Seattle and finally beat the Seahawks. There was less than a minute left on the clock.
Mixon: From right here it would be a 44-yard attempt.
Robinson: I’m taking a shot in the end zone.
Mixon: “23-20, Seattle up by 3. Panthers threatening. Funchess started onto the field, wasn’t sure if he should be out there. Derek Anderson says ‘you’re in, you’re in, get in.’ So Ted Ginn leaves. Clock will start on the snap. Panthers — six on the play clock — hurry up to the line of scrimmage. Everybody gets set. Cam Newton takes, fades back, Cam Newton throws a pass, Olsen, end zone ... Caught! Touchdown!”
Mixon said he gets goosebumps just thinking about the 2015 season. The Panthers finished the regular season 15-1, their best record in franchise history. They made Super Bowl 50. Newton won the league’s MVP award.
He remembers the NFC Championship Game, when the Panthers were hosting the Arizona Cardinals.
“I’ve never heard noise like that,” Mixon said. “I’ve been in Cameron Indoor Stadium, I’ve been in the Dean Dome, I’ve been in Carter Finley Stadium; I’ve never heard noise like that.”
The Bank of America Stadium crowd can be heard through Mixon’s opening monologue to that game.
“The franchise record 16 wins have brought the Carolina Panthers to the doorstep of Super Bowl 50. All season long, the Panthers have co-mingled the blood-thirsty stare of a top predator with a child-like passion for the game and for one another. That joy, that excitement is contagious, and our little-big town is on fire with it. So tonight, welcome to the most important game in the history of Bank of America Stadium. Welcome to the NFC Championship Game, Arizona at Carolina. ... Not a seat is empty and not a fanny is in a seat. They are all standing, 70,000 strong at Bank of America Stadium.”
Mixon makes it sound effortless.
But that doesn’t come without preparation. Mixon said he prepares in the middle of the week, comes up with his depth chart and memorizes his script before game day.
That way, on Sundays, he can take in the scene.
On plane rides, he takes with him the New England Journal of Medicine and familiarizes himself with different medical terminology. If an injury comes up during a game, you can bet Mick Mixon knows about it.
“I would believe that he could perform surgery,” Szoke said.
He knows the Panthers and the opposing teams.
This preparation dates back to his time at UNC. He was a color analyst there without having played basketball at the highest level. Still, he was knowledgeable and could explain things like a player.
“It’s the work he puts in,” said Jones Angell, the current voice of the Tar Heels, who worked with Mixon at UNC. “I think that separates the good from the great and he puts in that work to make sure he’s as prepared as possible.
“But if you listen to him call a game, it’s a craft for him and he is so eloquent and how he speaks. He’s so detailed in telling you what is happening.”
That’s part of Mixon’s philosophy. He believes that radio is personal and intimate. And while he may be describing scenes to a group of people, he tries to talk to his audience one at a time.
“I want them to feel like they’re as close to being there as I can,” Mixon said. “I want them to not only know what we can see, I want them to be able to smell what we can smell, to sense what we can sense, to feel the emotions that we feel.”
Losing his parents
Mixon grew up in Chapel Hill, the older of two kids.
He loved sports and his radio, idolizing broadcasters like Bill Currie, Wally Ausley, Curt Gowdy and Woody Durham, who he’d later work with for 16 years.
“It’s such an amazing profession,” he said. “You get to get close enough to the soul of an athletic team to kind of get to know it a little bit, to feel its heartbeat.”
His father, Forest Orion Mixon Jr., was a chemical engineer. He was funny and loved to tell stories, too, and Mick hung onto every word.
His mom, Sandra Mixon, was an artist. She had a big personality like a Broadway actress, and a loud laugh that sounded like “water babbling over to creek rocks.” Mick loved it.
His parents taught their two children the importance of hard work and following their dreams. And Mick did that.
At 30, he landed a job with the Tar Heels Sports Network as the color analyst, working alongside Durham, the voice of UNC athletics. It was his big break, but he wasn’t able to savor his new opportunity long.
Shortly after he started, Sandra and Forest Mixon were killed in a plane crash.
“I guess it’d have to be the death of my parents,” Mixon said, his voice trailing when asked about the biggest professional obstacle he had to overcome. “The suddenness of my immediate family going from four to two was a challenge.”
On July 19, 1989, they were leaving a chemical engineering conference in Laramie, Wyoming. Forest was there for business. Sandra decided to accompany him.
Mixon was supposed to pick his parents up from the airport that evening after their trip. He made a routine call from his parents’ home in Chapel Hill to United Airlines to make sure their flight was on schedule so he could be there on time.
But the airline agent kept asking him the same question over and over.
“Are you sure your parents were on Flight 232? Are you sure?’ ”
Mixon sensed something was wrong.
He turned the television to CNN to coverage of a plane crash. It was United Flight 232.
“I saw it roll over, I saw it burst in flames, and I knew that they hadn’t survived it,” Mixon said.
United Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, trying to make an emergency landing. Of the 296 people on board, 112 people died, Mixon’s parents among them. His father was 57 and his mother was 54.
He said the most difficult things he had to do in wake of his parents’ deaths were telling his sister what happened and flying on planes again.
Air travel was a requirement to be a sports broadcaster.
“For a long time, I would just call my sister and let her know where I was going and I would make my bed,” he said. “I wanted to make sure my little house was in order because just about every time I went on a trip I thought I probably wasn’t coming back.”
While the fear was there, Mixon said he decided he wouldn’t let it overtake him.
There was nothing he wanted more than to be a sportscaster.
Man of many trades
Mixon is a man of many trades. He’s a drummer and had his own band, the Franklin Street Band, which he started in 2003.
That’s how he met his wife, Dawn Elizabeth Thomas Mixon.
He also services his own cars.
“He is one of the smartest people I know,” said longtime friend and sportscaster David Glenn. “I went to law school and was like, ‘Holy cow. Everyone here is at least as smart as I am, and most of them are smarter.’
“Mick could have been a lawyer. He could have been a mechanic. He could have been a grocery store operator.”
He’s also been a mentor to many. And everyone has a story.
When former Panthers left tackle Jordan Gross was entering his ninth season in the NFL, he wanted to prepare for the next step after his football career. He had a desire to work with the Panthers’ radio broadcast when he’d retire.
Unsure of whether he’d be good at it, he wanted to practice.
One summer Mixon and David Langton, the radio producer for the network, took Gross up to the broadcast booth and turned on the film to a Panthers game earlier that year. They set up the headsets and recording equipment, and Gross and Mixon broadcast the game.
“That was such a huge confidence boost to me that those guys thought I had enough potential that they take the time to do that for me,” Gross said. “Mick makes you feel so dang comfortable sitting next to him that I mean, I think anybody could do it.”
Soon, someone else will have to.
Mixon already knows his plans in retirement. He and his wife of 10 years have bought a 1910 farmhouse in Alamance County that they’ve restored.
He’ll continue to upgrade it and spend time with his three grandkids — all boys, with another one on the way.
“I want to go see my kids play soccer and hang out with my bride and get some dirt under my fingernails on the farm, and have time for some of the things that it’s hard to fit in working a full-time job,” Mixon said.
In the meantime, he’s looking forward to being a full-time Panthers fan and passing on the torch to the next voice of the Panthers.
As his final game approaches, Mixon said he’s thought about what it might be like to call his final game. He’s thought about the last depth chart he’ll fill out. The talks in the locker room. The last flight he’ll take. The last interview with Panthers coach Matt Rhule. His final monologue.
And he’ll miss it.
But his feelings are not somber.
“I think I’ll be all right,” Mixon said. “There’s no crying in the National Football League. I hope I can hold it together. But people have been so nice to me. It’s been humbling. That’s what I’ll miss the most.”
The best of Mick Mixon
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "The Carolina Panthers will lose their voice tonight, and with it leaves a legacy."
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