Woody Durham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Woody Lombardi Durham (born August 8, 1941 in Mebane, North Carolina), known as "The Voice of the Tar Heels", is the veteran and legendary play-by-play radio announcer for University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill football and basketball teams. He graduated from UNC in 1963 with a Bachelors degree in Radio, Television and Motion Pictures.
Durham began his career at WZKY, a small AM radio station in his hometown of Albemarle, North Carolina, at age 16 and has been the football and basketball sportscaster for the North Carolina "Tar Heels" since 1971.
In 1981, Durham was named vice president and executive sports director at Tar Heel Sports Marketing. Durham has been named North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year twelve times, most recently in 2006.
Durham's oldest son, Wes Durham, is the play-by-play radio voice of Atlantic Coast Conference rival Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Falcons. His youngest son, Taylor, is a network affiliate manager for ISP Sports in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
[edit] Trivia
- Durham's middle name, Lombardi, is not derived from any Italian heritage in his family nor from legendary Green Bay Packers football coach Vince Lombardi. He is named for former major league baseball player and 1938 National League most valuable player Ernie Lombardi who was a favorite player of Durham's father.
- While a junior in high school, Durham was a member of the undefeated (12-0) 1957 WNCHSAA football championship team in Albemarle, North Carolina coached by H.T. "Toby" Webb. That team also included other North Carolina luminaries such as former First Union National Bank chairman Ed Crutchfield and leading criminal defense attorney Roger Smith.
- Prior to becoming "The Voice of the Tar Heels" in 1971, Durham worked on the radio football networks for Wake Forest University and Guilford College. Durham's first season on the Wake Forest network was 1964, when Demon Deacon running back Brian Piccolo led the nation in both rushing and scoring. He also worked as a play-by-play announcer and color analyst on the C.D. Chesley ACC regional television basketball network with legendary announcers Jim Thacker, Billy Packer and Bones McKinney.
- In March of 1971, Durham was summoned to Madison Square Garden in New York City to do the play-by-play on the television broadcast of the post-season NIT semifinal matchup between Duke and North Carolina. This was in response to numerous complaints by viewers in North Carolina about the mispronunciation of both Blue Devils' and Tar Heels' players names by New York-based announcers during the telecasts of the first two rounds of the tournament. The Tar Heels won, 73-67, and went on to claim the 1971 NIT championship.
- Most UNC fans mistakenly believe that Durham immediately followed the legendary "Mouth of the South" Bill Currie as "The Voice of the Tar Heels" in 1971. However, when Currie departed North Carolina in February of 1971 to become sports director at KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Bob Lamey of WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina took over as the interim "Voice of the Tar Heels" and finished the 1970-71 basketball season. Lamey is currently the radio play-by-play announcer for the Indianapolis Colts.
- Durham's folksy presentation style over the airways is a comfort to Tar Heel fans listening everywhere. His most famous on air saying during UNC basketball games is "It's time to go where you go and do what you do," imploring Carolina fans to invoke their most personal and favorite superstitions to help pull the Tar Heels through during especially tight games. He's also fond of using the phrase "Go to war, Miss Agnes," which was first popularized by legendary Baltimore Colts and Baltimore Orioles announcer Chuck Thompson during the 1960's.
