On March 25, with one of the most beloved Sixers of all time sitting courtside and being shown on the scoreboard, one of the truly iconic sounds in Philadelphia sports echoed throughout the arena.

"AND, FINALLY," Sixers public address announcer Matt Cord bellowed into his microphone, "A SIX-FOOT GUARD FROM GEORGETOWN. NUMBER THREE, ALLEN IIIIII-VER-SONNNNNNN."

Immediately afterwards, a thought came to Cord's mind. He turned to someone sitting nearby and said it out loud.

"This could be the last [time]."

Cord, who will call his final regular-season game when the Sixers host the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday, is retiring at the end of what is his 28th season as the team's PA announcer. He is hopeful for a slew of playoff games – the Sixers are already guaranteed at least one postseason game at home this season – so he can run back the vintage Iverson introduction at least one more time. He is also optimistic that the Sixers will stick around for long enough to get Joel Embiid back on the floor. If there is one call that has become synonymous with Cord's voice outside of Iverson, it is "JOEL, THE PROCESS, EM-BIIIIIID."

For decades now, Cord has gotten stopped on the street and in all sorts of public spaces by Sixers fans. They ask him to perform their favorite calls. He obliges. Asked what his favorite calls have been over the years, Cord's first answer is Jumaine Jones, a starter on the 2001 Sixers team that went to the NBA Finals.

"SIX-EIGHT FROM GEORGIA, NUMBER 33, JU. MAINE. JONES!" Cord yelled during a phone interview with PhillyVoice on Thursday afternoon. Then, he rattled off eight more of his favorites in a row. He started with "Andre Iguo-DALA-dala-dala," recalling that the former star Sixers wing was the first player whose name echoed in the arena. Then came Tony Wroten, "Canaan Ball" for Isaiah Canaan, "RoCo Three" for Robert Covington, and the names that were harder to work with, like Henry Sims and Alexey Shved. Another favorite: "Slammin' Sammy Dalembert." He recounted his call of Jrue Holiday's name. Then he came back down.

"So, yeah, there's some other ones," Cord said. "But obviously, Allen's number one."

Most PA announcers are, more or less, anonymous. In Philadelphia, that is not always the case. Cord has become friendly with the players whose names he has announced over the years. T.J. McConnell used to joke with Cord, who yelled "3J McConnell" on the rare occasion the point guard made a shot from beyond the arc. "Dude, I'm not a three-point shooter," Cord remembered McConnell telling him. (At the suggestion of a certain beat writer, Cord has spent VJ Edgecombe's rookie season going with "3J Edgecombe" when the 20-year-old connects from long range.)

Cord's public profile is as high as any of his peers in the league. In recent years, he has become part of the NBA2K video game franchise. Years ago, a video went viral of Stephen Curry taking in the end of Cord's introduction of the Sixers' starters for a game against the Golden State Warriors and embracing Cord. It is one of Cord's favorite memories on the job:

Earlier this season, former Sixers sharpshooter and current Atlanta Hawks executive Kyle Korver was in town. He caught up with Cord, who hinted to his friend that he was getting ready to call it a career. Korver told him he had to reach 30 years on the microphone before he could retire.

"But I did not do that," Cord said, "because I just want to have more time to do stuff, travel, do stuff with my wife, and things like that."

While one might assume Cord strolls into the arena shortly before a game, is handed a list of names and proceeds accordingly, his job is a lot more challenging and certainly more time-consuming.

Cord arrives at the arena for a game before most of the media members covering it – typically at least three hours before tip-off. He has detailed sheets with roster breakdowns and pronunciations. He spends considerable time practicing all of the names on them. And he must pay attention to every second of every game. He has to know, for example, how many fouls each player has, whether or not a team is in the bonus or if a shot taken near the three-point line was actually a three-point attempt. It was overwhelming at first.

In fact, when asked if he could have ever imagined becoming a Philadelphia sports institution back when he started in this job, Cord said "not at all," simply because he was so consumed by the stress of wanting to avoid mistakes.

"I just wanted to get everything right," Cord said. "...You're making split-second decisions all the time... I didn't know how many years I could do it. But every game walking in I was like, 'Oh God, I've got to get this right today.' It was challenging. So I was more worried about getting that right instead of, like, making some kind of legacy."

After 28 years of doing all he could to ensure he was considered one of the NBA's elite PA announcers, Cord has cultivated a tremendous legacy. Part of what gives him satisfaction now: He is walking away at the top of his game. Nobody will ever hear Cord call a Sixers game in which he was a shell of himself.

"Matt is [going out] on top, so to speak," Dan Baker, who just began his 54th season as the Philadelphia Phillies' PA announcer, told PhillyVoice in a phone interview on Friday. Baker compared the situation to Joe DiMaggio; the story goes that the baseball legend retired despite having offers to continue playing, because he felt he could no longer live up to the standard he had set for himself.

"I think there's a lot of merit to what Matt says," Baker said.

Cord said that as he pondered this decision over the last year and a half or so, he drew inspiration from Marc Zumoff, the Sixers' former television play-by-play announcer who retired in 2021. Cord admired how Zumoff called it a career while still in peak form, then gracefully passed the torch to his successor, Kate Scott.

"That's the way I want to do it," Cord told Zumoff earlier this season.

Cord has worked well over 1,000 Sixers home games, and Sunday will not be his last time holding a microphone at the arena. But he will have dozens of family members and friends in the crowd for his final regular-season performance. He does not know if he will be honored in any particular way during the game. A Sixers fan himself, he is pulling for the team to extend his career for a little while longer. For all he knows, he has another two months of work ahead of him.

But once it comes to an end, will Cord ever stop by his old stomping grounds?

"Absolutely," Cord said, sounding incredulous at the question. "I want to come, sit down, have a beer, get on [the scoreboard], do the Lil Uzi Vert dance, 'Just Wanna Rock.' I doubt they'll put me on."

Perhaps Cord still does not grasp how much he has come to mean around these parts. But when he announced on March 11 that he was retiring at the end of the season, the outpouring of love from fans – perhaps some of it was grief – was significant. At every game since, Cord has been thanked for his work by folks walking to their seats near the scorer's table. Many have asked him for pictures. Some have probably begged him to reconsider his decision. But Cord knows it is time for him to ride off into the sunset.

"I've always wanted to go out on top of my game," Cord said, and he is grateful to now be reaching that point. Cord called all of the attention he has received over the last four weeks "flattering," and admitted he has been surprised by just how passionate the support has been. It tells him he did something right along the way.

"I didn't expect this much at all, and it means so much," Cord said. "Everybody wants to matter in their jobs. No matter what you do for a living, you want to kind of matter. And it made me realize, like, 'Wow, I kind of mattered to this job.' It's been neat. It's been neat. I'm blessed."