For all the time Joe Miller spent driving across the Northeast chasing Navy sports teams’ treks through the Patriot League, he doesn’t remember turning on the radio much.

In life, just as on the airwaves, Pete Medhurst knew how to fill the time.

They’d talk about the teams they covered — Medhurst’s range included the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Ravens all the way to Navy water polo and diving. They’d talk about Anne Arundel County, where they both grew up and where Medhurst would referee youth sports in his “free” time. They talked about their families and their children, and how much Medhurst wanted to see his daughter, Kelly, succeed not only on her travel softball team (for which he was an assistant coach) but in life, too.

With Medhurst spinning yarns, even the eight-hour drives from Annapolis to the College of the Holy Cross sped by.

“We weren’t listening to music or to podcasts much, just talking all the way up there about life in general and having fun,” Miller said. “It was a gabfest, to be honest with you.”

Miller has thought a lot about those conversations in the last week. Medhurst died Monday at 55 after battling aggressive melanoma. He was the longtime voice of Navy athletics, working at the academy for 28 years and serving as the voice of football games for the last 12.

But limiting him to just one job would be a disservice. He called Nationals games, hosted radio shows throughout the region (he was especially well known on 106.7 The Fan in D.C.), did postgame shows for the Ravens and filled numerous odd roles for youth and local sports in Anne Arundel County.

He was famous for his football calls, referring to Midshipmen touchdowns as running “into the checkerboard end zone!” But Medhurst, with his voluminous knowledge and passion, was a sports village unto himself.

“He was just the anchor of who we are,” Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said. “He covered so many bases.”

Colleagues wondered how he found the time to fill all these roles. Veteran broadcaster Keith Mills, who saw Medhurst’s rise and worked with him on Navy and Ravens broadcasts, knows why his friend took on just about any sports job he could.

“I think he just loved it — he loved the people that played, the people that coached, and it all just drew him in,” Mills said. “It’s not the final score, the stats, the analytics. It’s the people. And Pete just loved that part of it.”

It wasn’t as if Medhurst didn’t know the stats and scores. Few knew them better and, unlike many of his colleagues, Medhurst never seemed to need notes.

On broadcasts, Miller marveled at how Medhurst composed openings and closings without a script. When he sat down to interview Navy’s head coaches, he never had notes, sports information director Scott Strasemeier said, but he would still pull obscure names and records from decades past from the top of his head.

Even coming in cold to a sporting event, Medhurst quickly took in all the information he needed. Mills was most impressed by how he could perfectly recall all the entries in horse races at Rosecroft Raceway, where he called harness races, and the Preakness Stakes.

“I called him ‘The Rain Man,’” Mills said. “He could look at any program and instantaneously remember those names.”

Medhurst’s talents were natural. He went to work right out of Southern High School, calling youth games on the Eastern Shore and at Salisbury University (former Salisbury football player and current Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn issued public condolences to Medhurst’s loved ones).

As Navy’s radio voice, Medhurst garnered trust across all sports.

“Pete was always part of the inside. He knew everyone,” Gladchuk said. “If he had a question, he could call anyone. With those connections, he gathered a level of intelligence that was extraordinary about the programs.”

Medhurst’s voice found big stages, too. He called Nationals games during the 2019 season, earning a World Series ring. He did two seasons of pre- and postgame shows for Ravens broadcasts on WBAL and 98 Rock.

Yet even though he had grand ambitions, he never found any role too small to leave a team hanging. He frequently would get back from long road trips and a late night of driving to fill in as a radio host or correspondent in the morning. Miller observed that Medhurst treated every sport he called with the same level of respect, and it was common to see him well up with emotion on senior days when he knew great careers were ending.

“He drew on the dedication and commitment that he knew it took for athletes to be at the Naval Academy,” Miller said. “He really, really cared. That stuff wasn’t faked. It was him.”

Those who heard Medhurst’s voice on the radio probably also saw a fair amount of him in arenas where he wouldn’t be recognized: as an umpire and referee for youth sports. When his own children were young, Mills ran into Medhurst at a basketball tournament where he was an official.

“I asked him, ‘Don’t you ever take any time off?’” Mills remembered. “He said, ‘Ah, I had a free night and they needed a ref.’”

Perhaps the most remarkable piece of Medhurst’s life was how he still managed to be a big part of his family’s lives. Married to Brenda Medhurst, he grew close to his stepsons, Ryan and Cody Joyce (who both played college basketball). His daughter, Kelly, attends Southern High just as he did, and he was an assistant for her Fury travel softball team. If he could catch a few innings of her game, he would drive wherever she was playing right after getting off the air.

In the last game that Medhurst called for Navy against Notre Dame in October — a nationally televised event between top-25 programs — Mills remembered that Medhurst was cross with himself.

“He told me that Kelly had hit two home runs in her club game that day, and he kept thinking, ‘I wasn’t there,’” Mills recalled. “I keep going back to that moment in time when I think back on Pete. That’s what he missed the most, not being able to share that moment with Kelly.”

Medhurst’s energy and many responsibilities make him impossible to replace. Gladchuk is grateful that many have stepped up, including Miller, since Medhurst had to step aside, but there is no one person who can do all the things he did. “The void that has been left in conveying Navy Athletics is insurmountable for us.”

Miller wished Medhurst could see the many tributes that have come out for his friend this week and feel the appreciation that so many people had for a man with seemingly boundless enthusiasm for any and all sports.

He misses Medhurst on the broadcasts, of course. But it particularly stings on those long, lonely drives to road games that are now a lot quieter.

“You hear a lot of times in sports when people ask, ‘What are you gonna miss the most?’” Miller said. “It’s not always the games. It’s all those times in between.”