University of North Carolina Athletics
Amato: A Radio Dream Realized
November 11, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 11, 2011
By Neil Amato
Monrovie Angell III is a diehard Carolina fan. Most of his family attended UNC, and he watches the Tar Heels play on TV whenever he can.
"Rovie" Angell still turns down the TV sound in favor of the radio call. He did it listening to Woody, listening with his son, now grown and gone.
Now when he's listening from Jacksonville, N.C., the voice he hears IS his son's. The new voice of the Tar Heels is Monrovie Jones Angell IV.
Today, when the UNC basketball team opens a highly anticipated season with a game on an aircraft carrier in San Diego, Jones Angell will be on the call, with a player he grew up following closely as the color analyst.
Angell said he lived and died with the 1993 NCAA championship team that included center Eric Montross, the radio color analyst. Angell fondly remembers Woody Durham's call of the 1993 Peach Bowl, a game won by the Tar Heels, who had a captain and linebacker named Rick Steinbacher, now the analyst with Angell on football broadcasts.
"The national championship game (in basketball) was an exciting game," Angell said. "The Peach Bowl against Mississippi State, Bracey Walker blocking the punts, and Cliff Baskerville running back the interception for a touchdown - those are the teams I really remember."
Angell can recite Durham's calls from those games and many others. When he met Durham for the first time about 10 years ago, he was extremely nervous, though he felt like he already knew him, listening to games with his dad as often as he did.
"I called him Mr. Durham probably for the first two years that we worked together," Angell said.
Angell learned as much as he could from Durham, the legendary, multigenerational voice who announced his retirement last spring. Angell also spent time watching Mick Mixon, a former UNC color analyst who now calls the action for the NFL's Carolina Panthers.
"I'm so lucky to have worked with Woody and Mick," Angell said. "They've both reached such high levels of success in this profession."
When Angell told his parents he wanted to be a sports broadcaster, his mother, Elizabeth, was less than thrilled. She was thinking orthodontist, for the job security.
But her son knew what he wanted: major, Division I play-by-play. He prepared, as he moved from intern to baseball play-by-play man to a part of the football broadcast, as if he was doing the football play-by-play. In June, in Omaha, all that preparation paid off.
Angell was about to call a game in the College World Series when he got a call from Gary Sobba, the general manager of the Tar Heel Sports Network. Sobba flew to Omaha and joined athletic director Dick Baddour in offering Angell the job.
As Angell points out, he couldn't apply for this job anonymously. Everyone who knew him knew this is what he wanted.
"He was excited and we were excited, but it was also a relief for us," Rovie Angell said. "All your eggs were in one basket. How many times does your dream job come open in your lifetime?"
The Angell men's unusual first name goes back four generations. Monrovie Jones Angell was named after a Baptist minister in the N.C. foothills. Monrovie Jones. M.J. "Rovie" Angell Jr. was a standout running back at Appalachian State in the 1930s, a member of the ASU sports hall of fame. Rovie III, Jones' father, was a Marine officer, which is why the family settled in Jacksonville around the time Jones turned 4.
Both Rovie and Elizabeth attended Carolina, as did their two children, Molly and Jones, as well as Jones' wife, also named Elizabeth.
So, yes, it was safe to say they were a Carolina family. Following the teams on the air was important.
"Jones and I never failed to turn it down and listen to Woody," Rovie said. "If we were doing well, and (Elizabeth) came in, and the tide turned, then she was asked to leave.
"If it takes a little rearranging of the furniture or the people, that's what we did."
The Angells knew to go where you go and do what you do. Jones Angell is smart enough to know he should be himself, not try to mimic Durham, even if he can recite Woody's famous calls.
He has mimicked Durham's legendary preparation. The detailed papers he places in front of him - lineups, depth charts, statistics on note cards - are nearly identical to those used by Durham, with a few tweaks from Mixon and Wes Durham, Woody's son and the Georgia Tech radio voice.
Angell has called women's basketball at UNC, as well as the Tar Heels' multiple trips to the College World Series. He also called men's basketball games when football conflicts kept Durham from doing both. Though he was part of the football broadcasts, Angell's last stint of football play-by-play was calling high school games in 2001.
"That was a big point of discussion in the job process," Angell said. "It was something we talked about, that that would be a little bit of a risk on Carolina's part.
"I prepared for every broadcast like I was going to do the play-by-play. I felt like it made me better on the air for what I did then."
Angell's enthusiasm comes through on broadcasts, but he knows to keep from getting too high or too low - especially too high.
"My range, when I get real excited - if I just let it go, I'd be screaming crazy," he said. "I have to make sure I bring the proper excitement, but don't flip out."
Now, his parents have a hard time hiding their joy during games.
"You have to have a little smile on your face - it's your son on the radio," Rovie Jones said. "He still amazes me sometimes with the quick responses he makes to situations. You would think that an inexperienced person, there'd be that gap before he could respond correctly. It seems to flow like he's been doing it forever."
