‘Football Friday’ helps Tom Suiter secure spot in NC Sports HOF, leave lasting impact
From Raleigh to Roanoke Rapids, “Football Friday was a weekly late-night tradition in the fall that spanned more than three decades.
High school football players, coaches and fans would sit in front of the television to see if their school made the cut. For 30 minutes, beginning at 11:30 p.m., legendary WRAL anchor Tom Suiter had the viewing area at his command.
“Football Friday” was an award-winning prep football highlight show, and Suiter was its face, coming into living rooms with the same energy each Friday starting in 1981, until his retirement in 2016.
Last Friday, Suiter was one of 11 — and the lone member of the media — inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.
“This is just unbelievable,” Suiter told The News and Observer during the Hall of Fame press conference. “I can’t believe that I’m in a Hall of Fame with Michael Jordan and David Thompson and so many great athletes. This is such an honor, so surprising.”
It came as no surprise to the legion of followers Suiter developed over his career.
“Finally, someone who had done so much,” former WRAL journalist Jared Fialko said. “Tom’s style was copied around the country in terms of the football Friday night highlight reel showcase.”
Suiter also created the Extra Effort Award, which was given out each week to a high school athlete. From 1981 until 2016, Suiter would pick an athlete who was performing at a high level on and off the court. He would then travel to high schools to present the award himself.
“I didn’t imagine the legacy, but I believed it (prep football) was an untapped market because communities love their high school teams,” Suiter said. “On Friday nights it was like, in some places, in the small areas there were lots of people who would go to ball games.”
How it started
Suiter started at WRAL in 1971. He covered multiple sports, including NCAA and ACC tournaments.
Ten years later, he went to sports director Bob Holliday, suggesting they do more high school football coverage.
That first Friday night, they covered three games.
“We thought that was great,” Suiter said.
In 1983, fresh out of Athens Drive High School, Keith Baker, who was working part-time at WRAL on the camera crew, came to Suiter and said he wanted to learn to be a news photographer. Another photographer, Richard Adkins, saw the work Baker had done and approached Suiter about helping out. Those three games that first Friday grew to 17 games, and then to 28 games every Friday by the time Suiter retired.
When he stepped aside, Jeff Gravley took over. Now the director of content strategy at N.C. State, Gravley remembers the pressure of coming behind such a large figure in sports broadcasting.
“The biggest thing was, I didn’t want to disappoint him and I didn’t want to drop the ball,” Gravley said. “I wanted to continue what he had built and what he had taught me. That was my number one goal.”
Even though last Friday was about him, Suiter wouldn’t let his team be overlooked on his big day.
“The sports team I worked with over at WRAL for 45 years, different people, but they were some of the best people I’ve ever known,” Suiter said. “We were a team and this is for all of us. They were hall of famers in my book.”
Gravley, who worked with Suiter for 31 years, watched Suiter mentor everyone from anchors to part-time workers, to interns whose only job was to sit by the phone and track down scores each Friday night.
“Tom has helped so many people get in the business and get through the next step,” Gravley said. “You know, we talked about family trees and coaching trees, well there’s a broadcasting tree and Tom’s got so many branches on it you can’t see the sky.”
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 6:10 AM.
