University of North Carolina Athletics
Jacobs: Durham Has Been Comforting, Familiar And A Fan
April 26, 2011 | General
April 26, 2011
by Barry Jacobs, TarHeelBlue.com
His was the comfortable voice of a friend, as familiar as the family doctor and as reliable as the postal carrier. He was there when fortunes soared or disappointment reigned, bringing solace and perspective, sharing heartfelt emotion. His presence was a constant, like the sky blue of Tar Heel uniforms.
"Woody doesn't tell it like it is, he tells it like we want to hear it," said UNC athletic director Dick Baddour.
But last week, Woody Durham held a press conference to say he was signing off, leaving the microphone after 40 years of broadcasting North Carolina football and men's basketball action. Durham was on hand for 23 bowl games, 13 Final Fours, and six national basketball championship contests.
Overall he figured he'd done more than 1,800 games in both sports; restricted solely to basketball, that would be about as many contests as UNC played since the advent of the ACC in 1954.
The announcement brought mixed feelings for fans and colleagues -- a personal sense of loss tempered by pleasure at someone else's apparently welcome life change.
You want to see an admired figure retire on his or her own terms, when they feel the moment is right. So often in sports and other pursuits we see even the best hang on too long, their talents eroded by time. Durham, a 1963 UNC grad named North Carolina Sportscaster of the year on 13 different occasions, would not let that happen.
"My presentation was not always what I wanted," Durham said of the 2010-11 academic year, the second in a row he felt the timeliness and acuity of his comments had slipped. "So I knew it was time. And I wanted it to be my decision, and not that of someone else a few years from now when they might have to literally carry me out of the booth kicking and screaming."
The decision was made in December, but held in abeyance until the quest for a fifth NCAA basketball title on his watch ended in the regional final.
Now Durham's weeks will be free of intricate, time-consuming preparation for broadcasts, choreographed daily from late summer to early spring. There won't be a need to pour over source materials until he knows as much, if not more, about the opposing team as its own announcers.
Durham only used about a third of the information he prepared on large, multi-colored, hand-written charts, but never knew which third it might be. Those "study habits" are the top trait that son Wes Durham, radio voice of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, cited when describing what he learned from his father.
Retirement will be shaped by fewer external schedules. The elder Durham immediately mentioned improving his golf handicap, drawing an exhortatory raised fist from Roy Williams, watching the press conference along with many Tar Heel head coaches and administrators. Woody (his real first name) will get to be more of a fan too, embracing his wealth of rooting superstitions even as he stays away from field and arena. "Gosh, it will be fun to finally yell at those officials!" he admitted.
Despite short notice, also in the wings at Durham's retirement announcement were present and former colleagues from Duke, Wake Forest and the ACC office, and of course from UNC. The presence of his peers was testament to the respect earned over a broadcast career that began at age 16, when Durham was a high school student in Albemarle, N.C. His professional journey included four years of ACC television work that ended with a 1971 NIT tournament game matching Duke and Carolina.
Today we rely heavily on the TV camera and a near-anonymous director's close-ups, reaction shots, and replays to frame the games we watch. TV announcers at the league and national level help to paint that picture, but are trained to rely on the camera lens to tell half the story.
Durham, on the other hand, comes from a radio tradition that predates TV's dominance. Tar Heel fans turned down the volume on their television sets and tuned in Woody's broadcasts not only to hear a sympathetic voice; they wanted help seeing the game with their mind's eye. Durham's success in achieving that effect was marked by the appreciation expressed by visually-impaired fans, an accolade mentioned several times by Durham when discussing the satisfactions of his career.
The native of Mebane in north-central North Carolina took inspiration from legends like Ray Reeve, whose "creaking shrill" and "gravel-voiced delivery," as historian Ron Morris put it, brought to life early ACC games on the Tobacco Sports Network. From radio veteran Add Penfield -- who taught him how to keep score on a steno pad while calling a game -- to pro sports giants Ray Scott of Green Bay and Baltimore's Chuck Thompson, Durham studied and admittedly "stole" from the best play-by-play announcers of the mid-20th century.
Sure, his game coverage included emotive riffs and exclamations, both rehearsed and unbidden. But the commentary was grounded in the upbeat professionalism of someone who'd been there and seen that, the verbal equivalent of the football receiver who catches a touchdown pass and gently lays the ball in the end zone before trotting back to the bench.
Make no mistake, though -- part of Woody Durham's charm for Carolina fans, and his lesser popularity among supporters of rival schools, was the UNC announcer's fervor for, and identification with, teams, players, and coaches from his alma mater. He was the same fellow in 2011 at age 69 as the happy warrior who ran onto the field at Kenan Stadium in 1982, hands held high ahead of a Tar Heel squad returning home with Dean Smith's elusive first national championship. He was not shy about being a fan.
