They came to remember Woody

They came to remember Woody on Sunday at Carmichael Arena, in the place where decades ago the North Carolina students would chant his name – “Wood-Dee! … Wood-Dee!” – until he peered over his perch high above the court and acknowledged the crowd.

This was the building where Woody Durham, the longtime radio voice of the North Carolina football and basketball teams, put words to some of Dean Smith’s best teams. It’s where Durham introduced listeners around the state to the likes of Phil Ford and James Worthy and Michael Jordan.

It’s where, in 1974, Durham narrated the Tar Heels’ improbable victory against Duke. For UNC, the game had seemed lost. It trailed by eight points with 17 seconds remaining. On his broadcast, Durham prepared for time to run out. Then his voice rose as the impossible started to happen.

When Walter Davis tied the game with a 25-foot shot as time expired in regulation, Durham yelled into the microphone, his voice clear above the crowd’s deafening roar: “Unnn-beee-leave-able!” he said, and on Sunday, especially, the call lived on.

Several hundred people came to Carmichael to mourn and to celebrate – to sit amid the memories and the calls in a place where Durham delivered so many of them. Durham died on March 7. He was 76. For years, he’d suffered from Primary Progressive Aphasia, a neurocognitive disease that, cruelly, robbed Durham of his ability to speak.

His words live on, though, inside of so many people who sought them out. When Durham first began calling UNC games, his radio broadcasts were often the only conduit between Tar Heels fans and what was happening inside of Carmichael, or Kenan Stadium. It was a time long before social media and live updates, and even before cable television made college athletics more accessible.

Even when that happened, though, and even when UNC basketball and football games became regularly-televised events, Durham’s loyal audience sought the familiar, comforting soundtrack of his voice. It became common for people around the state to turn down the TV, and turn up Woody.

“Fans trusted his every word,” said John Swofford, the ACC Commissioner and UNC alum whose senior season on UNC football team coincided with Durham’s first as the play-by-play voice. “If Woody said it, it was true.”

Swofford was one of several who spoke on Sunday during Durham’s public memorial. Roy Cooper, North Carolina governor, recalled his days as a UNC undergraduate, when he and his fellow students would chant for Durham during basketball games. Years later, Cooper said, he listened to Durham when Durham encouraged listeners to “go where you go, and do what you do.”

Durham wasn’t one for flashy catchphrases, or gimmicks. But if he had a trademark saying, it was that: “go where you go, and do you what you do.” He often repeated the phrase during stressful moments of close games, and listeners took it to mean that they should practice their most trusted superstition in hopes of turning fortunes UNC’s way.

To Cooper, “go where you go, and do what you do” meant that he needed to dress his infant daughter in a particular light blue onesie, and place her in a rocking swing exactly four and a half feet away from the television where a UNC game played on. It was the 1993 NCAA tournament Cooper said, telling the story on Sunday to laughter, and to this day he’s sure that the Tar Heels won it all that year because Durham’s words inspired a good-luck charm in the form of a baby girl in onesie and a swing.

“He was not only the voice of the Tar Heels,” Cooper said, “he was our voice.”

Jones Angell, who in 2011 succeeded Durham as the UNC radio play-by-play voice, served as the emcee, of sorts, on Sunday. When the ceremony began, Angell noted Durham’s affinity for the interesting statistical nugget.

“Anyone who worked with Woody knows he loved a good stat,” Angell said. “He loved that perfect number to supplement the action on the field or on the court.”

And then Angell listed some of Durham’s numbers that he accumulated throughout his 40 years as the Tar Heels’ voice: he called nearly 2,000 UNC football and men’s basketball games, and 23 football bowl games and 13 men’s basketball Final Fours. He called six national championship games, four of those – 1982, ‘93, 2005 and 2009 – UNC victories.

Durham connected with his audience through the games, and the moments. But his connection went beyond those things. He won over listeners with his simple yet elegant, plainspoken delivery. Durham not only called North Carolina games, but he sounded like North Carolina, too, with a drawl befitting of a childhood in Albemarle.

“Woody wanted people to know where you were from,” Swofford said, referencing Durham’s on-air habit of often mentioning the hometowns of athletes. “I think that’s because he was proud of where he was from.”

Other speakers on Sunday included Dick Baddour, the former UNC athletic director who said that “Woody was one of the most respected people I’ve ever known.” John Bunting, the former UNC football coach, spoke and remembered Durham’s positivity during particularly difficult years for Bunting’s program.

“He brought us all so much joy,” Bunting said.

Roy Williams, the UNC basketball coach, delivered his remarks through a pre-recorded video. He said he was doing on Sunday what Durham would have wanted him to do: go out and recruit. Williams remembered how he’d seek out Durham’s voice in the early-to-mid 1970s, when Williams was coaching high school basketball in the North Carolina mountains.

He followed UNC basketball in part through Durham’s broadcasts. Later, Williams and Durham became friends – first during Williams’ years as an assistant under Smith and then later, when Williams returned as UNC’s head coach in 2005. Williams and Durham shared an appreciation for golf, especially. Durham continued to play until his disease rendered him unable.

The significance of Sunday, in the world of sports outside the memorial, wasn’t lost on Williams. It was the Sunday of the final round of the Masters. For years, Durham had watched it with his youngest son, Taylor. Williams told the audience that they should go home and turn on the Masters, that they should watch it as Durham would have and that, this time, they should watch it with Woody.