Everyone has a moment where nostalgia takes over, and a series of events over the past few days reminded me of the magic of the radio.
It started on Saturday. If you are a Carolina Hurricanes fan, you’re aware that the Stanley Cup Playoffs have moved to national broadcasts only, and while the NHL has a stable of pretty good to great announcers at the microphone, the fact is that they aren’t the pair of broadcasters fans are used to listening to. That pair moved to do radio only broadcasts, and that brought
out a post on Bluesky that felt like it was speaking right to me:
As a UNC fan you should be nodding your head heavily right now.
The fact is that as much vitriol as I had for the likes of Dick Vitale and Billy Packer growing up, I barely listened to them because I always—and I mean always—muted my TV and turned on the radio to the Tar Heel Sports Network to hear the call from Woody Durham and Mick Mixon. It wasn’t until I actually got to Carolina that the practice stopped, and ultimately when I moved away from the area before a radio call was available on the Internet that I listened to national voices more.
So this bit of nostalgia was already in my brain when the sad news of legendary New York Yankees radio announcer John Sterling’s passing came down on Monday. It brought back to mind when I had heard of Durham’s passing, and it helped me empathize with Yankee fans who must have had childhood memories opened up like a treasure chest, as he was the voice of the modern era of the Yankee title wins. He was quirky, and he was theirs.
The fact is that there just isn’t anything like listening to the homer call of your team, and it’s something that does feel different in college sports and baseball than it does in any other sport. The tradition and long history of baseball just screams for a constant radio presence with legends choosing to stay on that side of the microphone instead of going in front of a camera. As for the college sports, the combination of love for the university, the likelihood of an alumnus calling said game, and the connection of it being a person who is also a fan of the team you are calling an important moment creates that connection that you just don’t get when it’s one of the national players calling it.
As UNC fans — to say we are extremely lucky is understating it. Decades of Woody Durham painting a picture of the action, and then to be fortunate enough to be followed by Jones Angell when life unfairly took that voice from Woody mean that many amazing moments in UNC history have the sound track of the UNC radio team calling it.
Thus we have our question of the day: what is your favorite UNC Radio call? It can be a football call, basketball call, or even baseball call as we have the recent success of the Diamond Heels to create some new memories.
For me, there’s no other answer—the 1993 National Title game:
HE TAKES A TIMEOUT! TECHNICAL FOUL! TECHNICAL FOUL!
Middle school me was jumping up and down on that Webber timeout. When it happened, after screaming, I ran over to my boombox that was playing the radio call and hit “record” with the blank cassette tape that was in there. I was too superstitious to record the call before I knew they would win it all, but once that timeout happened I knew it would mean and I needed to have Woody’s call saved.
Time took that tape from me, I don’t know if I’d even have a device to play it on now, but the call is still so burned into my brain I don’t know if there’ll ever be something that will replace it.
So, use the comments below, and let us know what are some of your radio calls for UNC?
