NORMAN — It’s not apparent to people who only know Bob Barry as the voice behind the microphone but there is another side of him.
He’s as upbeat and enthusiastic as he sounds and likes clean jokes that usually involve some kind of word pun, homonym, twisted phrase or confused older citizen. He could have gone into stand-up comedy but broadcast sports paid better at the time.
Recipients of his jokes — and there are many of us around the area — know his brand of humor. A sample:
“You know Bob Jr., but this is my older son, Frank,” he told me. “We just call him elder Barry.”
Rimshot, please.
He couldn’t resist the call of standup at Monday’s press conference:
“Well, about three weeks ago, I had a stint put in my heart. So this is my last stint. Ok, that didn’t work, did it? OK, how about this one: I
fell out of a window on my head when I was 7 and I knew at that time I was gonna be a play-by-play announcer. That didn’t go either, did it?”
The announcement Tuesday that “The Legend” was stepping down at age 79 after a 50-year career in broadcasting caught many of us by surprise. As the official voice of the Sooners in football and basketball, he’s as well known among the Sooner nation as the coaches and players themselves. He’ll stay on as some sort of athletic department ambassador.
He has spent 30 of those 50 broadcasting years at OU. Coach Bud Wilkinson took a chance and picked him from the Norman High School broadcast booth.
“In my mind, there’s no more outstanding broadcast journalist and sportscaster — 15 times he’s won the outstanding sportscaster of the year in the state of Oklahoma — no one across the country is more outstanding than Bob Barry,” said President Boren.
As youths, many of us had small, transistor radios on our bicycles to listen to Bob call the Saturday afternoon games. He didn’t offer the kind of know it all analysis and two-faced reporting that sports broadcasting thrives on today. He was humble and responsible and shared the facts as he knew them. He was the same person talking to the Guymon Rotary Club as he would be talking to the OU Board of Regents.
A friend whose handicapped son idolizes Bob Barry and has his signed portait on a bedroom wall sent me an e-mail at noon Tuesday. Across the country, he had already heard the news. It was almost as if the quarterback had quit. What will they do. “Who do you think they will hire to replace Bob Barry Sr.?”
To those fans whose long distance contact with OU football is over the radio or Internet, his soothing, consistent voice was as familiar as the grandfather back home on the family farm. President Boren, in honoring Barry with a distinguished alumni award in May, said he and the First Lady Molly Shi Boren routinely turn down the television audio and turn up the radio broadcast when they can’t attend a game.
He gets excited and makes us excited. Sometimes in the rush of hundreds of games misses a call, a player’s name or hometown or a minor detail. Who among us could work under that kind of pressure and not miss something every now and then?
He’s so committed to his work that he scheduled significant medical procedures around sports seasons. At times, it literally hurt him to move but he had a game to call and loyalty was more important than pain.
Beyond athletics, word games interest him. He is solely responsible for The Trancript buying the daily syndicated “Jumbles” puzzle that appears on the Comics page. He saw it in his travels to other cities and asked if he could get it in his hometown newspaper.
“This is a great time for me. I’ve been so fortunate over the years to have a career in broadcasting, doing what I love to do. And of course, broadcasting OU football and play-by-play for all these many years, 50 years coming on here in Division I football and basketball, I’m very much looking forward to this, my final year doing OU,” Barry told reporters Tuesday.
“I’m enthused about this year. I’m looking forward to it. You know, something you love to do your entire life and you’re able to do it and get paid for it, it’s hard to let go. I really — part of me doesn’t want to let go. But the other part says, ‘It’s time, Bubba.’ So I think it is time.”
Andy Rieger editor@normantranscript.com 366-3543
