Davie Award in 2000, its highest honor, for
extraordinary service. In 2005, Carolina
announced the establishment of the Woody
Durham Distinguished Professorship in
communications studies.
Perhaps the biggest, if least formal, honor
came only after Durham retired and was
“overwhelmed,” he says, by fans who
likened his leaving the scene to Dean
Smith’s departure from the sidelines in 1997.
“For heavens sakes!” Durham exclaims,
G-rated to the core. “Holy cow! I’m glad
they didn’t say that to me while I was still
doing it, I might have been so emotionally
overcome I couldn’t have finished. That’s the
highest compliment, for them to think that I
was that big a part of Carolina for them.”
SCOTT SHARPE ’83/THE NEWS & OBSERVER
But, then, Durham did not hear himself
on the radio through a combined 80 foot-
ball and basketball seasons, 35 NCAA tour-
nament appearances, 23 bowl games, 13
Final Fours, six national basketball champi-
onship contests, and NCAA titles in 1982,
1993, 2005 and 2009. He did not experi-
ence, as only a fan can, the continuity he
embodied as participants, seasons and even
the basketball venues changed.
Opposite page: At
courtside with, left to
right, Jim Valvano,
VilCom President Jim
Heavner ’ 61 and
Mike Krzyzewski. At
left: With commentator Mick Mixon ’ 80
just before a tipoff
with Florida State in
2001.
Through it all, certain principles remained
constant in his presentation, including “the
inflections, the meter, the word choices, the
journalistic balance with which he tries to
broadcast a game,” said Mick Mixon ’ 80, his
broadcast partner for 16 years.
“His job was, as he put it, to paint a
canvas,” said Fred Kiger ’ 74, who worked
with Durham at Carolina for 10 years, six
as a statistician and four as a football broad-
cast colleague. Kiger recalled listening to
Durham’s first basketball broadcast as the
Voice of the Tar Heels, a Dec. 2, 1971,
home victory over Rice. “His job was to
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