He’s played golf with Billy Casper, chatted with Magic Johnson, taken some hacks at pitches from major leaguer Brendan Donnelly and had a great vantage point for sports in the Duke City area for the last 18 years.

In spite of all this, Bob Brown of Rio Rancho is saying farewell to his TV job on Thursday.

Brown, the long-time sports anchor at KOAT-TV (“Action 7” … pause …. “Sports”) has decided it’s time to find another line of work. It might not be for a while, though, as he and his wife of almost 18 years, Cathy, who have called Rio Rancho home for 15 years, are going on a cruise in the spring.

Bob Brown chats with Albuquerque Isotopes manager Dean Treaneor before the start of a recent season at Isotopes Park.

“We’ve worked different shifts for 18 years,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what is out there.”

Getting off TV has been in the back of Brown’s mind awhile, he said, and without any children or other major bills – and a shiny, black Corvette nearly paid off – he’ll be comfortable in the short term.

“I contemplated it for about a year-and-a-half,” he said. “It’s been a lot of late nights.

“It just seemed right,” he said of his Dec. 18 departure, the end of a regular workweek for Brown, who turns 47 on Dec. 22. So when he heads to University Stadium Saturday to see the third annual New Mexico Bowl, it’ll be as a fan, not as a sports reporter.

“When New Year’s rolls around, I wanted to go to a bowl game and not work,” he said. “There is life after TV. It feels weird when you think 18 years at the same place. … Time just flies.”

Indeed, some former “TV personalities” – Terry McDermott, Augusta Myers, Jeff Siembieda, Ed Lopez and Monica Armenta – have said goodbye to the tube and are working in other fields.

It’s not like Brown decided TV was his avocation when he was a child. A self-proclaimed military brat, he attended elementary school and junior high school in San Diego, high school at Quantico Bay, and went to college at Troy (Ala.) State University, obtaining degrees in criminal justice, political science and broadcast journalism.

He headed to Georgia to help his grandmother when his grandfather, former big-league pitcher Elmer Riddle, died, and found work at a small cable-TV station.

“I didn’t get on TV just to be on TV,” he said. Brown arrived in Albuquerque in 1990 to be a cameraman, which evolved into the stations “third guy,” behind McDermott and Lopez, and eventually became sports anchor.

“I was a sports guy. I played all the sports growing up,” he said.

As a kid, he said, “I wanted to be an airplane pilot or a race car driver.”

The latter came true briefly when he raced in a celebrity event at Sandia Motor Speedway, winning his heat and heading to the winner’s circle to receive a trophy – and then “doing doughnuts,” like the big guys in NASCAR.

That ranks among his career highlights, as does a half-hour chat with Magic Johnson, which occurred during a Michael Cooper basketball camp in Albuquerque in the early 1990s.

Also on Brown’s list of career highlights:

· covering much of the career of former world champ Johnny Tapia;

· interviewing Tiger Woods, who was at the University South golf course as a Stanford golfer;

· recording a promotional spot with Brent Musburger;

· twice playing golf with pro Billy Casper;

· being close to the starting grid at the Indy 500, covering the exploits of Al Unser Jr.;

· covering Lobos sports, including tournament and bowl games; and

· facing Brendan Donnelly at Rio Rancho High School’s baseball field one spring afternoon a few years ago.

“I’ve played pool with ‘The Black Widow’ (Jeannette Lee), played golf with Sugar Ray Leonard, ridden with ‘Iron Man’ Stewart, an off-road racer,” Brown added.

It hasn’t always been a sports venue that provided memorable events for Brown, who accompanied reporter Conroy Chino in Black Hawk helicopter for a story on illegal border crossings, covered the bosque fires south of Albuquerque “for 10 solid hours” one summer, rode his horse down Central Avenue in a State Fair parade and reported live from an absentee ballot warehouse during a run-off election between Heather Wilson and Patsy Madrid from an election warehouse

Don’t expect a big sendoff for Brown on channel 7’s 10 p.m. newscast Thursday. He’s told them to keep his farewell “low key,” not a big blowout like they had when reporter and co-anchor Cynthia Izaguirre left after “only” eight years there.

“It was fun,” Brown said. “I had a great time.”

“Bob always made every event fun,” says Van Tate, sports anchor at channel 13. “While we waited for interviews or whatever, Bob would entertain us. I think he may be changing jobs to become a comic. He could make the change well.

“Bob also had a lock on everything auto racing,” Tate continued. “He would find stories that everyone would wonder, ‘How did he get that?” As far as sports coverage is concerned, the sports of auto racing is losing a giant in Bob Brown.”

Brown knows people who recognize him from channel 7 will probably still approach him.

“I was in the grocery line and a guy says, ‘Who’s going to win the Cowboys’ game this weekend?’ No ‘How are you,’ no handshake,” Brown said.

He’ll still have opinions, of course. Only you won’t hear them on TV.

“I’d like to work in Rio Rancho,” he said, knowing his options are open and there’s no timetable for a new place of employment. “I’m not looking for a 9-to-5 cubicle job.”

Brown, who is a member of the Rio Rancho Sports Advisory Council, will stay temporarily stay busy with a home-based Internet business he runs.

“TV’s always going to go on, no matter who’s there. I tried to live up to what those guys (before me) did, keep that spot warm,” he said. “I’m looking forward to what’s out there.”