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

Albert, now 56, joined Fox Sports in 1994 for their first year of NFL coverage and is expected to call 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 joined the NFL, Albert mostly called Washington Capitals games and told The Post in a recent interview that being a professional football broadcaster was the “furthest thing” from his mind.

Years after his hiring, Albert discovered that one factor was that former Fox Sports executive George Krieger, who worked alongside David Hill, Ed Goren and Larry Jones, had a son who was a major 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 it took years for this type of content to become widespread. could be discovered. online.

“Apparently, thanks to those lacrosse tapes, that was some of the work he heard me do.”

This helped lead to Albert’s audition for the NFL on Fox.

Fox’s stable of play-by-play announcers took a fascinating shape after the network stunningly poached CBS’s NFC package, hiring seasoned vets Pat Summerall — who by then already had a legendary partnership had with John Madden from years as CBS’ top team – and Dick Stockton.

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

The young crew all had significant lineages: Albert, Buck and Brennaman were all sons of famed sports broadcasters Marv, Jack and Marty, respectively, and Harlan’s father Bob was president of the Packers at the time.

Albert got the job at 26 with no NFL experience and didn’t need much football at all. He had played a number of high school and Division III college games for Cox Cable on Long Island, as well as some Wagner College games in the 1980s.

At Fox, Albert first worked with former NFL defensive back Ron Pitts for a season, and then with Hall of Fame offensive tackle Anthony Muñoz for one season. This was followed by seven years 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, where Tony “Goose” Siragusa was also on the field most of the time as a hybrid analyst and sideline reporter.

Albert echoed the sentiments expressed by many announcers over the years, namely that he has found a sense of kinship with his broadcast partners and production crews because of the amount of time they have spent together on the road.

“You really become a family. For 31 years, I haven’t actually been home for a weekend, unless I was announcing a local match,” says Albert.

“I once found out that in the eight years that Moose and Goose and I worked together, we were literally together 60 days a year. With Goose, who we tragically lost two years ago, he always wanted to get the most out of life. He never wanted to sit still. Some of the memories I have, even more so than many of the matches we organized together, on Saturdays when we had some free time. Goose was like the camp counselor: he always wanted to do something outside in the city we were in. ”

Excursions include a jet boat ride through Niagara Falls around a Bills game, driving around at 150 miles per hour in race cars on the NASCAR track in Charlotte and petting baby alligators on an airboat ride in New Orleans.

Later Albert spent three years at Ronde Barber, and for the past five seasons his partner was Jonathan Vilma.

Along the way he also worked games with Troy Aikman, John Lynch, Charles Davis, Bill Maas, Tiki Barber, Sean Jones and Greg Olsen.

Memorable moments Albert called included the game where Terrell Owens stomped on the Cowboys star and was decked by George Teague, Bill Cowher shoving a Polaroid photo up the referee’s shirt at halftime after an erroneous 12-man call on the field, and Michael Vick rushed for a 46-yard touchdown in overtime to beat the Vikings as his career with the Falcons began to blossom.

Albert also mentioned the infamous game where the Eagles tied the Bengals and Donovan McNabb admitted he didn’t even know the tie existed, and the game where Eli Manning and Drew Brees combined for an NFL record 13 touchdown passes.

In addition to the NFL, Albert is also currently calling a few MLB games for Fox.

He calls games for the NHL on TNT package and was an announcer for the last nine Olympic Games 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 a year on MSG.

All these years later, he said he still has “vivid” memories of the first NFL game he called for Fox, a game featuring 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.