LORAN SMITH: Georgia grad living the dream in Boston

​RYE, N. H. — What does one of the most popular and most recognized personalities affiliated with the Boston Red Sox do on his off-day? With Dave O’Brien, he catches up with chores at home, gets new tires for his car and takes friends to lunch.

​O’Brien, who has a long-standing broadcast related and familial tie with the University of Georgia, got his start in radio right out of Syracuse with WSB in 1987. In addition to serving as sports director of the “Voice of the South,” O’Brien co-hosted the UGA Tailgate Show and called Bulldogs basketball games. As those of us who worked with him quickly realized, he would not be around very long. He was destined for higher assignment with his razor sharp mental acuity, harmonious voice and genial demeanor.

​You become the most recognized sportscaster in New England when you are the play-by-by play narrator of the Red Sox on TV. Walk into a restaurant or watering hole in Maine communities like Freeport, Portland, Kennebunkport, Scarborough and Ogunquit, you note the Red Sox playing on television and hear Dave articulate the performance of New England’s favorite team.

It seems that all of New England can’t get enough of the Red Sox. Venture across the borders from Boston into Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, and you are in Red Sox country where overt passion has reached ultimate heights with the Sox stamping out the “Curse of the Bambino” and winning three World Series championships in the past 14 years.

​If any man is truly living the dream, it would be O’Brien. Born in Quincy just 13 miles South of Boston and the birthplace of two presidents (John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams), Howard Johnson’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, the first commercial railroad in the country and John Hancock, himself, O’Brien was a Red Sox aficionado from birth.

His father, who suffered through the Sox drought of 86 years not winning a World Series, took him to games when Dave was a kid. Dave marveled at the first sight of Fenway Park, he reveled in learning the history of the team and listened to Ken Coleman and Ned Martin as if they were gods.

​When Dave began his broadcast career with WSB and the University of Georgia, he had the goal of affiliating with a big league team. The Braves, once a tenant for a World Series at Fenway Park, would be a nice gig. He liked living in Atlanta. In the back of his mind, he, naturally aspired for an affiliation with his hometown team, but knew that might not ever work out.

​He did work with the Braves in 1990-91. When the Miami Marlins landed a Big League franchise in 1993, Dave joined the Marlins broadcast lineup. He was there for the Marlins World Series championship in 1997. He had a ring, he was grateful, but it was not Boston. It was not Fenway. It was not the hometown team.

​Things got better. ESPN hired him for college basketball and Monday and Sunday night baseball assignments. That got him to Fenway, but he was with the “visiting” press. That would change in 2007 when he took a seat by Joe Castiglione in the Red Sox radio booth. He did double duty, however, still working for ESPN on the weekends during baseball season.

In August 2015, he became the primary play-by-play TV announcer for the Red Sox on the New England Sports Network.

​How could life be any better — grow up a Red Sox fan, establish yourself on the broadcast, accumulating impressionable professional credits and come home to be the voice of the hometown Red Sox?

​The highlight came in 2004 when Boston, down three games to none to the Yankees in the ALCS, rallied to win four straight games against the hated rivals and then swept the Cardinals in the World Series. The curse had ended. And who was there to broadcast the results, but Qunicy’s native son. As proud as he was, he was humbled to tears.

Loran Smith is co-host of “The Tailgate Show” and sideline announcer for Georgia football. He is also a freelance writer and columnist.