Somewhere in my closet is a box of cassette tapes which contain OU football radio broadcast recordings of those amazing early years of Oklahoma’s wishbone offense. It was very important for me — at age 12 and 13 — to make sure I hit the red record button at precisely the right moment when the Oklahoma Football Radio Network hit the air each Saturday.
The voice on those recordings and the voice that brought Sooner football to most of Oklahoma — long before anyone envisioned an ESPN or Fox Sports or other television that assured the Sooners would be on the tube every weekend — was Bob Barry, then sports anchor of WKY-TV and the man Bud Wilkinson hand-selected in 1961 to do the Sooner radio play-by-play.
Bob (we all feel like we know him too personally to call him Mr. Barry or just Barry) announced his retirement this week. He will complete 50 years of college athletic radio broadcasting following this football and basketball season at the University of Oklahoma. He will turn 80 years old this year.
“It’s time. I had been thinking about it for a couple of years, and kind of pointing toward this year as my last,” Bob said in a statement released by the school.
Bob’s taken some criticism the last few years from some friends of mine, as well as radio talk show callers. They said he makes too many mistakes. Bob himself admitted on Tuesday that he’s not as sharp as he used to be, and it was time for him to step down and let someone else take the microphone.
I haven’t listened to the radio broadcasts much in recent years to notice any fall-off of Bob. I did listen to the Oklahoma-Nebraska game last fall because the cable TV company decided not to provide service that evening. I did not notice any problem with Bob, but I was sure disappointed in the Sooner offense that night and they’re not anywhere close to being 80 years old.
In fact, Bob sounded about as disturbed by the on-field play as I did and said so on the air. I respected that from him, as difficult as it was to hear.
Recent verbal miscues or not, the great thing about Bob Barry’s radio broadcasts has always been his enthusiasm and energy.
When the Sooner radio broadcasts begins on Saturday it is Bob Barry’s voice that carries that electricity in the air which Sooner fans experience when the Pride of Oklahoma does its run-on from the north end zone tunnels. He brings us that anticipation of the opening kickoff. He has always captured the stadium reaction of Sooner fans to great plays and scores.
“The excitement, the true devotion you feel…there’s a special bond between him and the university,” OU Pres. David Boren said this week of Bob.
Without exception all persons who have interacted with Bob have found him to be one of the nicest and friendliest individuals on the sports scene. His retirement announcement was in keeping with the class act that he is.
What is also refreshing about this story is the fact that Boren and AD Joe Castiglione did not push Barry out the door amid criticism of his broadcasts from fans.
Boren and Castiglione showed loyalty to a good guy who had committed tremendously to the Oklahoma program. They also showed something about their own character that seems lost in today’s world of big time college football. Loyalty and tradition is an important value.
Next season we’ll have a new voice of the Sooners. I’m sure a few hundred resumes have already been faxed to the AD’s office.
In the meantime, I think this season I’ll be listening to Bob Barry on the radio from my seat in Section 11.
Now, let’s dig through the closet to get to those tapes. I hope my old cassette player still works.
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