Dave South is retiring as Texas A&M’s radio broadcaster after this season.
After 32 years in the booth, ‘Voice of the Aggies’ will move on
COLLEGE STATION — Dave South intends to soon visit the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
“I understand the walk down is not bad,” said South, who turned 72 this week. “The walk back is.”
The long, scenic walk of South, the iconic “Voice of the Aggies” since 1985, with Texas A&M athletics is wrapping up. He will retire from his Texas A&M football radio play-calling duties following the upcoming season.
South also will call his final A&M basketball season, but plans to continue with his A&M baseball play-by-play duties for the foreseeable future.
“I can still keep my hand in baseball, and I’ve never made a secret that baseball is my favorite sport,” South said.
South said he and his wife, Leanne, intend to get more use out of their motor home during the fall and winter and travel the country.
“I’ve been holding this job down for someone else for the last 32 years,” a smiling South said, adding he and Leanne intend to visit places like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and Mount Rushmore. If a Mount Rushmore existed of A&M broadcasters, South would cut the most prominent figure.
“I’ve seen more Aggie athletic events than anybody in the history of the school,” said South, trim and fit in his early 70s. “If somebody does break that, by then I’ll be dead and gone.”
‘I am a homer’
South, a Wichita Falls native whose voice is a part of A&M football lore, arrived in College Station 32 years ago after working in the football broadcast booth for the Southwest Conference radio network. He had been asked by then-A&M assistant athletic director Ralph Carpenter to fill in for a season at Kyle Field, and South jumped at the chance. South welcomes anyone referring to him as a “homer.”
“I am a homer,” he said. “I work for Texas A&M. I want the Aggies to win.”
His wife’s father had graduated from A&M in 1941. South’s fifth-grade homeroom teacher was Mary Todd, wife of legendary A&M football player Dick Todd, who would visit with and play football with the youngsters at the school. That fill-in season of 1985 led to a legendary career at A&M for South, who has also spent a chunk of the last 32 years deeply involved in the Bryan-College Station community.
He plans to up his involvement in the community and in his church, minus about a dozen football games and a whole lot of basketball games past this upcoming school year.
“I’ve been in college athletics 47 years, with 32 of those at Texas A&M,” South said. “These 72 years of my life have gone by so fast it’s unbelievable. My grandfather on my mother’s side had more influence on me than anyone else, and he was the picture of good health all the way to 91 years of age. He sat down in a chair and told his wife to wake him up when it’s time to eat. She went to wake him up an hour later, and he didn’t wake up.
“That’s only 19 years away, and I’ve got a bucket list of things I want to do.”
No replacement named
South, who attended Midwestern State, also served as A&M’s associate athletic director for sponsorships and broadcasting through 2009, prior to focusing on his broadcasting duties in a semi-retirement. There’s no word on who will replace South in the booth.
As for the reaction of color commentators Dave Elmendorf (football) and Al Pulliam (basketball) to South’s pending retirement?
“They understand,” South said. “They know that this doesn’t go on forever.”
South said his all-time favorite player at A&M is the late Rodney Thomas, a former Groveton High star running back who died three years ago at 41 from a heart attack. Thomas also played for the Oilers, Titans and Falcons in the NFL.
“He was a good person who died way too young,” South said. “I never saw Rodney angry.”
South also mentioned former A&M star linebacker Dat Nguyen as one of his favorites.
“Grant Teaff once told Dat, ‘You and Mike Singletary are cut from the same cloth,’” South recalled of the former Baylor coach and former Baylor star linebacker.
As a youth in Wichita Falls, South drew up his own scorebook after studying that of his Little League coach’s, and South would recall some of his favorite Brooklyn Dodgers games from a perch mimicking a press box.
“I would go in my bedroom, close up the door and raise up the bedroom window, sit by the window and pretend I was in a press box,” South said, grinning. “I would recreate the game.”
He’s spent most of his life describing games, and now South is looking forward to describing more of the countryside.
“1985 has turned into 2017,” South said of time “accelerating” as one grows older, adding of his longtime duties as A&M sports’ voice, “I fell in love with this.”