‘Mr. Cabot’ loves calling games

Patrick Sinclair talks on the pregame show prior to the Panthers’ second-round playoff game at North Little Rock on Nov. 18. Also pictured is Sinclair’s broadcast partner, Mark Raines.
Patrick Sinclair talks on the pregame show prior to the Panthers’ second-round playoff game at North Little Rock on Nov. 18. Also pictured is Sinclair’s broadcast partner, Mark Raines.

— He may not be a native of Cabot, but Patrick Sinclair, the Cabot Panthers radio football analyst, is called “Mr. Cabot” by his broadcast partner.

Sinclair, 51, a native of Minden, Louisiana, moved to Cabot 18 years ago and is a big supporter of all things Cabot Panthers. He recently completed his fifth season working along side Mark Raines on the Cabot Panthers radio team, which is aired on KFLI-FM 104.7 (Cool 104.7).

“I can’t walk out of the stadium and expect to get to the car anytime soon because he is going to talk to everybody,” Raines said of Sinclair. “He’s either got them insured or he knows them.

“He is Mr. Cabot.”

Sinclair moved to Cabot when his work, State Farm Insurance, offered him a chance to own his own business in Cabot.

“We were not happy about having to leave. … I hated moving,” Sinclair said. “I didn’t hate Cabot. I hated moving. But then after six months, we were like, ‘This is pretty good.’

“After a year, you couldn’t get us away from Cabot for anything. It’s home now. It’s been 18 years. I will live a very long time in Cabot, Arkansas.”

Raines recently completed his eighth season broadcasting Panthers games. After three years with another partner, Raines was looking for someone to broadcast the games.

“He is so visible in the community,” Raines said. “That’s a reason why I wanted to bring him on. We go to church together. I got to know his sense of humor and his knowledge of the game. It’s instant name recognition. You don’t have to introduce Patrick Sinclair. People in Cabot already know who he is.”

Sinclair’s knowledge of football goes back to his playing days in high school at Glenbrook Academy in Minden. He was also a walk-on player at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.

“I was on the sidelines. I suited up but never made the travel team,” he said.

Sinclair said he’d never even spoken on the radio before joining the Panthers broadcast team.

“I love it,” he said. “I got here, and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I watched [Raines] and listened to him. He prepped me on how the game broadcast goes. And there was a whole lot more to it than I expected. I didn’t have any clue on what went on behind the scenes.”

Raines said Sinclair taught him how to watch football differently after working with him for a short time.

“I played a little bit of ball. I’m like every fan,” Raines said. “I watch where the football goes. [Sinclair] watches from the inside out. He’s watching the offensive line, the line of scrimmage. That is where all his focus is, and it’s amazing when there is a penalty flag thrown. I have to wait for the official. Patrick knows right away.”

Sinclair said that before each play, he scans the field twice.

“I scan the line; then I look to see if the receiver runs their routes,” he said. “I want to see if he’s open before the quarterback throws the football, but we rarely throw the ball. Then I try to find the football.”

Sinclair’s job is to analyze each play during the broadcast. At the same time, Sinclair tries to keep things entertaining.

During Cabot’s game at Bentonville West in the first round of the Class 7A state playoffs, Sinclair used a particular saying: “I”m blind out of one eye and can’t see out of the other.”

Raines said there are a few other sayings that Sinclair uses, such as “He’s stronger than a garlic milkshake. When he got there, he arrived angry. He’s got the finesse of an angry blacksmith.”

“Those are things people look forward to,” Raines said. “I get calls and texts from people asking, ‘Did Patrick really say that?’”

Sinclair credit’s his late father, Joe Sinclair, for the “one-liners.”

“That’s my dad,” he said. “If you knew my dad, then you’d know where I’m coming from. I got them all from him. He had more one-liners than anybody. He was always cracking a joke. He was a real laid-back guy.

“I try to make it entertaining. There are thousands of people listening to the game. They are wanting to hear about their family or their grandsons. People from all over the country are listening. Let’s make it entertaining.”

Sinclair said he is obsessed with football.

“You’ve got to explain the game but crack a joke every now and then,” he said. “I like that.”

Another piece to the broadcast that Sinclair helped introduce was “shoutouts” to the listeners.

“It was Patrick’s idea, and I thought it was brilliant,” Raines said. “Patrick asked me one night, ‘How do we know if anyone is out there listening?’ I said, ‘I guess we don’t unless we get some feedback from there.’”

At that point, Raines would give out his cellphone number on the air.

“We asked them to text us: what is your name and where you live,” Raines said. “It’s become a regular thing, especially when we’re on the road. We get them from Kansas, Georgia, Illinois and Connecticut [for fans listening on the internet]. It’s grandparents. It’s aunts and uncles of these players and families of coaches.

“That is gratifying when you get that kind of feedback from listeners.”

Sinclair and his wife, Karla, have three daughters. Lily is a freshman at Louisiana Tech, where she is a manager for the women’s basketball team; Grace is a junior at Cabot High School; Emma is an eighth-grader at Cabot Junior High North.

Sinclair loves being involved with community through sports in Cabot.

“To me, it’s more of the game,” he said. “I didn’t know many of the coaches. Then as as my daughter Lily got active with basketball teams, I knew all the basketball coaches real well. I got involved on my own. I support the teams whenever I can. It was what was given to me back when I played. We had a lot of men do a lot of stuff for us. I told myself that I would do that for our kids when they got older. I’m going to stay involved with Cabot.”

Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.

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