Dallas Wesley "Wes" Durham (born January 25, 1966 in

Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the Un ...

) is an American sportscaster. He is a

play-by-play In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

announcer for

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

and

ACC Network ACC Network (ACCN) is an American multinational subscription-television channel owned and operated by ESPN Inc. Dedicated to coverage of the Atlantic Coast Conference, it was announced in July 2016 and launched on August 22, 2019. The channel o ...

coverage of college football and basketball. He works telecasts of the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC) due to his experience broadcasting in the conference. Durham served as the radio play-by-play announcer for the

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and men's basketball teams from the start of the 1995-1996 season through 2010, and continued to announce the basketball games through 2013. He was also Georgia Tech's Director of Broadcasting and is the radio play-by-play announcer for the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

Biography

Early life

Durham's father,

Woody Durham Woody Lombardi Durham (August 8, 1941 – March 7, 2018) was an American play-by-play radio announcer for the North Carolina Tar Heels football and men’s basketball programs from 1971 to 2011. Early life Born in Mebane, North Carolina, Durham ...

, was the "Voice of the Tar Heels" for the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

for forty years. Growing up in that environment gave Wes the opportunity to see behind the scenes of sports and sports broadcasting. Wes worked as a

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music f ...

for a roller rink and for a

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

during high school. Wes Durham attended

Apex High School Apex High School is a public high school in Apex, North Carolina, United States, and is part of the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS). It is on a 4x4 block scheduling system. History Apex High School was selected by WCPSS to receive ...

. He then went to

Elon College Elon University is a private university in Elon, North Carolina. Founded in 1889 as Elon College, Elon is organized into six schools, most of which offer bachelor's degrees and several of which offer master's degrees or professional doctorate ...

and learned about broadcasting while working as an undergraduate assistant on the Elon Sports Network and local radio station WBAG. After graduating in 1988, he had stints as the radio announcer for the athletic teams at

Marshall University Marshall University is a public research university in Huntington, West Virginia. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States. The university is currently composed of nine colleges: L ...

and

Radford University Radford University is a public university in Radford, Virginia. It is one of the state's eight doctorate-granting public universities. Founded in 1910, Radford offers curricula for undergraduates in more than 100 fields, graduate programs inclu ...

. He then spent three years at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

Georgia Tech

Durham came to

in the fall of 1995. In 1997, he was also named Tech's Director of Broadcasting. Durham was paired with former Tech QB Kim King until King died in 2003. Later on Durham worked with Jeff Van Note and Rick Strom during the remainder of his time at GT. Durham was known for making exciting calls while having a lot of charisma. Notable calls were the 1998 and 1999 thrillers between Tech and the Georgia Bulldogs, Calvin Johnson's game winning catch at Clemson in 2004, Will Bynums game winning layup in the Final Four in 2004, and Nesbitt taking back his own fumble against Florida State in 2009. After Durham left his role at Georgia Tech in 2013, his duties were taken over by

Brandon Gaudin Brandon Gaudin (born December 18, 1983) is an American sportscaster who broadcasts play-by-play of NFL and college football, basketball and baseball for Fox Sports and the Big Ten Network. He is also the voice of ''Madden NFL'' for EA Sports (201 ...

Broadcasting

Play-by-play

Beginning with the

2004 NFL season The 2004 NFL season was the 85th regular season of the National Football League. With New England as the defending league champions, regular season play was held from September 9, 2004 to January 2, 2005. Hurricanes forced the rescheduling o ...

, Durham also took on the radio play-by-play duties for the

in addition to his responsibilities at

. In 2011, when

Raycom Sports Raycom Sports is an American producer of sports television programs. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and owned and operated by Gray Television. It was founded in 1979 by husband and wife, Rick and Dee Ray. In the 1980s, Raycom ...

began producing ACC college football games to air on

Fox Sports Net Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

(under a sub-license from

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

), Durham was called upon to be the play-by-play announcer due to his long history working in the ACC. He was teamed with analyst James Bates. During his time at Elon, Wes interned at local radio station WBAB in Burlington NC were he was on the broadcast team announcing for WM Williams Bulldogs football.

Radio host

In 2018, Durham began hosting ''ACC This Morning'' on

SiriusXM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius S ...

ACC Radio, with co-host Mark Packer. In March 2019, it was announced that the duo would host a similar program in simulcast with SiriusXM and ESPN's new

, ''Packer and Durham''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Durham, Wes American radio sports announcers Atlanta Falcons announcers Elon University alumni Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's basketball announcers Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football announcers National Football League announcers 1966 births Living people Radford Highlanders College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers College baseball announcers in the United States Radio personalities from Atlanta