Woody & Wes Durham

Family business for Durhams
By Neil Amato, Durham Herald-Sun
March 1, 2003

CHAPEL HILL -- Maybe it was December 1972, when the 6-year-old hung out with his basketball heroes at a luau.

Maybe it was March 1981, when the 15-year-old flew to Philadelphia to attend the national championship game.

Maybe it was a few years later, when the boy, still in high school, had the privilege of gathering the almost cryptic sound bites of a coach named Bobby Cremins in a Carmichael Auditorium hallway.

Maybe it was the 1996 ACC Tournament, when the alleged adult was, in his words, "acting like a 4-year-old."

Maybe it will be today at the Smith Center, when Georgia Tech plays North Carolina.

Heck, maybe Wes Durham realizes every day how fortunate he is to be so close to the games and the teams and the players he loves so much.

That intimacy with the contests and competitors started with an assist from his father, longtime Tar Heels radio voice Woody Durham. Perhaps the son got another assist, the genetic sort, from Dad. But Wes Durham’s spot as play-by-play man for Georgia Tech — well, he got that on his own.

He learned from his dad, sure, learned that preparation was the key. But he also inherited the voice, authoritative yet down-home. Still, even the most golden of throats doesn’t get hired for anything beyond reading commercials for monster-truck events if he can’t handle himself in the booth when the home team is down by one with 20 seconds left.

Wes Durham practiced calling games, even though he didn’t know it, the same way so many of us did.

While a buddy attempted the imaginary last-second shot on the hoop in the driveway, Wes gave the play-by-play. He never imitated his dad, who’s been calling games at UNC since 1971.

But, he admits, "I remember starting to sound like him," he said.

Football in the yard? Same thing.

"It’s really not too different from what [I’m] doing now, it’s just a little bit more organized," Wes said. "It’s like the front yard, just 80,000 are at the game. It’s like the game in the driveway, just 9,000 people are watching."

Aiming first for TV

Woody Durham also got an early start in radio, a week before he turned 16. Raised in Albemarle, a textile town of 12,000 not far from Charlotte, Durham trained his voice and his delivery in public-speaking contests. One of the judges was starting Albemarle’s second station, and he summoned Durham to audition by reading commercials.

In the summer of 1957, a few months after he had gotten hooked on UNC basketball after its NCAA title, Durham got the job, which first consisted of playing records after school.

Woody the DJ played Johnny Mathis, the Platters, Elvis. He played some football in between at Albemarle High — where one of the team managers a year behind him in school was Bob Harris, now the play-by-play man at Duke. Durham went on to college at UNC, knowing he wanted to major in RTVMP — radio, television and motion pictures.

"My goal, really, was television," he said.

His goal was realized soon after graduating and marrying the girl he had met six summers earlier at a debating workshop. Woody and Jean Durham — who will celebrate their 40th anniversary this summer — had decided to stay in North Carolina, and Woody saw ACC basketball broadcasts as the plum TV job here.

He called some of those games for four years before UNC athletics director Homer Rice called, wondering if Durham would be interested in the job as the Tar Heels’ radio voice. Rice had learned only the day before that Durham was a UNC graduate, a fact that flattered Durham.

"I said, ‘If I’ve done ACC basketball for four years and you never knew I went to Carolina, I’ve done a pretty good job,’ " Durham said.

Of course, Rice hired Durham. And, about 25 years later, as the AD at Georgia Tech, Rice hired Wes Durham for the same job there.

Following his father

Wes Durham had so many superstitions.

At home basketball games in Carmichael in the early 1970s, he had to sit right behind Tar Heels kicker Ellis Alexander. When he watched games on TV — with the sound down and the radio volume up — he had to sit in Dad’s favorite chair, wearing canvas, light blue Chuck Taylors.

He also wore wristbands for every game, white ones with light blue letters "WD." His custom set was made by the mother of former UNC guard Steve Previs.

"I’ll always remember those blue shoes and those sweatbands," Jean Durham said.

Wes remembers making a trip west in his father’s first season, 1971-72, ultimately a Final Four year for the Tar Heels.

"We stopped off in Berkeley and played Cal — stayed at the Marriott at Fisherman’s Wharf," Wes said. "Six years old, first plane ride ever, Hawaii. It was unbelievable."

He attended the 1981 NCAA final that UNC lost to Indiana, then decided the Tar Heels couldn’t win with him at the game. So in 1982, he stayed home. He had aged out of wearing the wristbands, but he still sat transfixed, watching the muted screen as his father called the action: UNC trails, Jordan hits jumper, UNC leads, Fred Brown throws ball to James Worthy, UNC wins.

When Michael Jordan makes that jumper with 17 seconds left, Wes no doubt is excited, but he keeps his attention focused on Dad’s words. He wants to hear what he’ll say next.

He does all this listening and, eventually, he gets to do some talking. Wes worked in the radio booth, doing whatever he could in high school to be around the action. When other networks would call with reports from other games, sometimes Wes would do likewise for some other station.

In 1984, Wes went to Elon College, where the athletics director, Alan White, wanted him to be part of the Elon broadcast team. White knew of Wes’ background, and the freshman got an immediate start doing color commentary in football and then basketball.

An Elon faculty member did the basketball play-by-play, but his schedule kept him from doing every game. So in February 1985, with Woody in the stands listening, Wes did his first live play-by-play, calling the Fightin’ Christians’ victory over Lenoir-Rhyne.

It was a solid launch to a career that might not have begun until his junior or senior year at a bigger school. Wes listened to his father’s suggestions, but he already was ahead of the curve. He had the voice, of course, but he also had learned from his father the value of preparation.

Woody Durham is revered for the amount and detail of his preparation.

"He just does not let himself be tempted by doing less than the maximum," said Mick Mixon, who has worked alongside Durham as the UNC analyst for 14 seasons. "He’s like a machine."

Woody Durham is a machine in another way. With the exception of conflicts caused by other Tar Heels games — for example, the Las Vegas Bowl in 1998 was the same day as a basketball game at Dartmouth — Durham never has missed a broadcast.

"He’s got the immune system of 10 men," Mixon said. "I’ll pick up one or two colds a year. His immune system just laughs at the viruses we get."

So maybe Wes got those genes, as well. He hasn’t missed a broadcast, either, and friends know that he wouldn’t miss one for even the most important reasons. Two of his buddies from Apex High School moved their weddings to either a Sunday or an off week so Wes could be there.

Out of college, Wes first was hired at Radford (Va.) University on Aug. 8, 1988, his father’s 47th birthday.

One of those who listened to his audition tape was John Montgomery, now the president of UNC’s booster organization, the Rams Club. Then he was Radford’s sports marketing director, and he and basketball coach Oliver Purnell knew the family tree of the voice they were hearing.

"We were like, ‘What’s the issue?’ " Montgomery said. "Wes’s voice distinguished itself. We just looked at each other and knew, ‘He’s our guy.’ "

 

Family business for Durhams, continued

Connected to the games

Wes worked there three years before moving to Marshall and then Vanderbilt. He still wanted to return to his ACC roots, even though he and his wife, Lynn, whom he met at Radford, liked Nashville. When the Georgia Tech job opened, Rice called on a familiar voice.

Wes couldn’t contain himself at his first ACC Tournament. He couldn’t contain himself when he met idols such as Walter Davis.

"There’s certain players he would get weak-kneed over seeing," his wife said. "He is a little boy at times. I can’t imagine his life if he didn’t work in sports."

Wes didn’t attend Georgia Tech, but he feels it when the Yellow Jackets lose. School broadcasters can’t help but feel it, getting to know the players and coaches as well as they do during a season or a career.

Wes will watch a replay on tape, or he won’t be able to sleep right away after a night game. His mother doesn’t like watching Georgia Tech play UNC these days.

"When there’s a bloodline there, you want to see everyone do well," she said.

Woody feels the wins and losses like a blood relative of UNC’s coaches would. His glasses fogged up a bit when he recalled Jordan’s deciding basket against Georgetown in the 1982 final. He is emotional about the place he first came to in the 1940s, as a boy watching Charlie Justice play football.

"It’s something that’s been part of me throughout my life," Woody Durham said. "I don’t think about this as much, but when I do think about it, I do take it seriously. People say, ‘Well, gosh, Woody, you’re the link. You’re the constant. You’re to Carolina what Coach Smith and Michael and people like that. … I don’t think that way, but I do think that when people listen, we’re sort of the connection between the people of the state with Carolina, and I do take that seriously. I have fun doing it, but I take it seriously. I realize the responsibility that goes with it.

"It means a lot to me to have been doing it as long as I have."

Thirty-two seasons is a long time, but Durham, 61, still feels good about staying on. He can see the end, though, and he plans to go out on his terms. Though Mixon could see Durham calling the games until he’s 70, Durham said he’d be done before that.

"I would like to do it for a few more years," he said. "I’d like to do it to see [John Bunting and Matt Doherty] through this transition period. I’d like to see things come together for them.

"How much longer? I don’t know, but it won’t be forever. I’ve had some friends in this business that didn’t know when to quit, and they virtually got carried out of the booth."


Pictured below:Wes Durham, 'The Voice of the Yellow Jackets' and Woddy Durham, 'The Voice of the Tar Heels', pictured with Wes' 3-year old twins Emily and Will.

 

Woody Durham is just that, a big 'ol woody.

 

don't care whether you are a tar Heel fan or not - Woody is a legend.

one of the best in the business and a true class act.

I still remember him doing sports for Channnel 2 here in Greensboro.

 

he went to High School here in Albemarle

 

two class acts...

My alma mater announcer is Jim Fyffe, and this is heresy for saying this, but my favorite Football announcer is Larry Munson, of UGA/WSB 750. And I am supposed to hate Georgia. Anyhoo.

Why doesn't more props go to the best announcer in the Carolinas, Gary Hahn of NC State!