Kenny Albert reflects on his storied career before the 500th Fox NFL game

Kenny Albert was in his mid-20s and, unbeknownst to him, a Fox Sports executive was listening to tapes of him calling college lacrosse.

Albert, now 56, first joined Fox Sports in 1994 for NFL coverage and is expected to play his 500th game for the network when the Eagles host the Browns on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.

Fox believes Albert is the first person to ever be in the booth for 500 NFL games on a single network.

Before Fox entered the NFL, Albert primarily attended Washington Capitals games and said in a recent interview with The Post that being a professional football broadcaster was “the furthest thing from his mind.”

Years after he was hired, Albert learned that one of the factors was that former Fox Sports executive George Krieger, who worked alongside David Hill, Ed Goren and Larry Jones, had a son who was a great high school lacrosse player.

“George happened to ask his friend Jody Shapiro, who ran HomeTeam Sports where I worked in Washington DC, to send him some VHS tapes of college lacrosse games,” Albert said, emphasizing that this was years before content like this could generally be discovered online.

“Apparently that was part of the work he heard from me thanks to those lacrosse tapes.”

This led to Albert auditioning for the NFL on Fox.

Fox's roster of play-by-play announcers took on an intriguing form after the network stunningly poached the NFC package from CBS by hiring seasoned veteran Pat Summerall – who had been with for years at that point CBS had a legendary partnership with John Madden' Top Team and Dick Stockton.

Fox then built around them with four broadcasters in their 20s: Albert, Joe Buck, Thom Brennaman and Kevin Harlan.

The young crew all had significant lineages – Albert, Buck and Brennaman were all sons of famous sportscasters Marv, Jack and Marty, and Harlan's father Bob was president of the Packers at the time.

Albert got the job at age 26, with no NFL experience and without having played much football – he had some high school and Division III college games for Cox Cable on Long Island, as well as some Wagner college competitions graduated in the USA in the 1980s.

At Fox, Albert first worked alongside former NFL defensive end Ron Pitts for a season and then with Hall of Fame offensive lineman Anthony Muñoz for a season. Seven years followed with former Falcons linebacker and defensive end Tim Green.

Green, who became a prolific author with children's books on the New York Times bestseller list, is currently battling ALS, and last week Albert attended an event in Atlanta for Green's Tackle ALS foundation.

After Green, Albert worked with Brian Baldinger for four years.

He then spent a decade with Daryl “Moose” Johnston, which also featured Tony “Goose” Siragusa as a hybrid analyst and sideline reporter on the field for most of the run.

Albert echoed the sentiment that many announcers have expressed over the years, that he has developed a sense of connection with his broadcast partners and the production teams because of the time they spent together on the road.

“You really become like family. “I literally haven’t spent a weekend at home in 31 years unless I’m attending a local game,” Albert said.

“I once found out that in the eight years Moose and Goose and I worked together, we were together literally 60 days a year. With Goose, who we tragically lost two years ago, he always wanted to live life to the fullest. He never wanted to sit still. Some of the memories I still have, even more than many of the games we hosted together, were Goose being like the camp counselor on Saturdays when we had downtime – he always wanted to be out there doing something do in the city we were in. ”

Excursions included a jet boat tour of Niagara Falls around a Bills game, riding 150 mph in race cars at the NASCAR track in Charlotte and petting baby alligators on a swamp boat tour in New Orleans.

Albert later spent three years with Ronde Barber, and for the last five seasons his partner was Jonathan Vilma.

He also worked on games with Troy Aikman, John Lynch, Charles Davis, Bill Maas, Tiki Barber, Sean Jones and Greg Olsen.

Among the memorable moments Albert called was the game in which Terrell Owens stomped on the Cowboys' star and was harassed by George Teague, Bill Cowher, who shoved a Polaroid photo into the referee's shirt at halftime after mistakenly calling out 12 players called on the field, and Michael Vick rushed for a 46-yard touchdown in overtime to beat the Vikings just as his Falcons career was beginning to blossom.

Albert also mentioned the infamous game where the Eagles tied the Bengals and Donovan McNabb admitted he didn't even know ties were a thing, and the game where Eli Manning and Drew Brees combined for an NFL record 13 Scored touchdown passes.

In addition to the NFL, Albert is also currently announcing some MLB games for Fox.

He hosts NHL games on the TNT package and has hosted the last nine Olympics on NBC.

Albert is also the voice of Rangers radio on ESPN New York and fills in for Mike Breen for the Knicks for approximately 15 games per year on MSG.

All these years later, he said he still has “vivid” memories of the first NFL game he called for Fox, a contest that featured the Rams and Cardinals with Buddy Ryan and Chuck Knox as head coaches.

“It’s absolutely crazy that it’s been 31 years. I don't know where the time went. It’s almost surreal,” Albert said.