Former UNC broadcaster Woody Durham dies at 76

Woody Durham, whose melodic voice delivered thousands of memories and won tens of thousands of adoring fans during his 40 years as the radio play-by-play broadcaster for the North Carolina Tar Heels football and men’s basketball teams, died early Wednesday morning at his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., his family said. He was 76.

Durham, who will be remembered as much for his well-known lines and delivery as his connection with his devoted audience, died from complications of primary progressive aphasia, a neurocognitive disease that in his later years robbed him of his ability to speak. After struggling with his speech for years after his retirement in 2011, Durham was diagnosed with the disease in January 2016.

The diagnosis came with a cruel fate: The disease slowly stole Durham’s masterful talent for words, and his ability to put them together in ways that, for the longest time, inspired many North Carolina fans to turn down their televisions and turn up their radios, so that they could, in the words of many, “Listen to Woody.” Doing so became a tradition among Tar Heels fans wherever Durham’s voice flowed through the radio waves in North Carolina, and often that was everywhere — “from Murphy to Manteo,” as one of the early tag lines went on the Tar Heels Sports Network.

Durham began his broadcasting career when he was still in high school, working for his small-town local radio station. In 1971, eight years after graduating from North Carolina, he became the radio voice of his alma mater’s basketball and football teams.

Durham was behind the microphone when the Tar Heels won their first national championship in basketball under Dean Smith, in 1982, and when they won their first under Roy Williams, in 2005. He called more than 1,800 football and men’s basketball games on the Tar Heels Sports Network. Among those were 23 bowl games in football, 13 men’s basketball Final Fours and six basketball national championship games, including two more North Carolina victories, in 1993 and 2009.

Both of Durham’s sons followed their father into broadcasting. Wes is the radio play-byplay voice of the Atlanta Falcons and also works ACC games — he formerly worked for Georgia Tech — and Taylor the play-byplay voice of Elon University.

“Our family is grateful for the incredible support my dad and our family received throughout his illness,” Wes Durham said in released statement. “From the medical teams to the general public, it’s been amazing. We hold to and will always cherish the wonderful memories he left for our family and Carolina fans throughout the world.”