Voice of the Rams

Gordon Woodrow never planned on announcing football games in Glenwood.

Sure, the Oakland native loved football but he was content announcing the school’s track meets every spring. That all changed in the fall of 1991 when Jim Stanley, the longtime public address voice of the Rams, gave up the job due to health reasons in the middle of the football season.

And Woodrow was tapped to take over.

Nearly three decades later, Woodrow is still at it.

Although he admits, he still prefers calling track.

“I love doing track meets, it’s probably my favorite thing to do,” Woodrow said. “I love football too but track was where I got started (announcing).”

The current voice of the Rams has called games high above Ram Memorial Field for 26 seasons in football. Woodrow serves as his own offensive spotter during games – the spotter assists the announcer with the call off-mic. His wife, Lori, serves as his defensive spotter. He isn’t sure how long he’s been announcing track meets but guesses its between 40 and 45 years.

Earlier this season, Woodrow was honored by the Iowa High School Athletic Association with it’s Morris. D Kelley Award for 2017. The award is named in honor of Morris Kelley who was the voice of the Iowa High School Athletic Association for more than 30 years.

“I was blown away,” he said of the award. “I knew nothing about it or that I was going to get it that night. I really didn’t know the Iowa High School Athletic Association had an award. It was a big honor.”

Woodrow’s interest in announcing began as an undergraduate at Drake University. He enrolled in a class taught by legendary Drake Relays announcer Jim Duncan. The blue oval at Drake is named for Duncan, who passed away in 1989 after three decades as the meet’s public address announcer.

“He was world famous as the voice of the Drake Relays,” Woodrow said.

The course, Radio and TV Directing, had Woodrow and a dozen classmates working at that year’s Relays. Woodrow was assigned to the victory stand that year, directing medalists to the podiums and then radioing to Duncan when the were arranged for them to be announced to the stadium.

“I got to meet Randy Matson, who was at the time the world shot put champion and (Charlie) Green from Nebraska, who was the fastest human at that time,” Woodrow said. “It really got me hooked on announcing and its still probably why I still like track so much.”

Woodrow played football and track in high school and considers himself a sports fan who will watch just about any competition. He says being familiar with the sport you’re calling and preparation are two essential requirements for any sports announcing. Track, he said, is probably the most demanding.

“Track is fun because you have to always be ahead of the game, you have to know what’s going at all times with a race going on here and then you have runners coming up on deck and there might be another event going on too,” Woodrow said. “You have to keep track of a lot with who is running and who is reporting and who is who on this relay.”

Calling football is literally a different ball game. Knowing referee hand signals and the nuances of the game is one thing; balancing the announcing with the commentary is another.

“You have to be careful with football,” he said. “You find out right away you can’t talk too much when a play is going on. You also try to be neutral, which is hard sometimes because you might get more excited in your voice for your team. But I’ve been to other schools where the announcer will say ‘the quarterback goes back to pass…’ and that’s sort of like telling the other team what’s going on. You have to be very careful not to give things away and wait until after the play is over to say who did this or that.”

He can’t recall a time he had an embarrassing call during a game or a track meet but he’s learned to not pre-empt the referees’ calls on everything from first downs to touchdowns the hard way.

“There were times where I’d call it in (to the endzone) and you’d find out he wasn’t quite there,” Woodrow said. “On first downs you’ll swear they made the line to make and then the spot is off and you already said ‘First down, Rams.’ It’s not a big deal but you try to avoid that.”

Getting the pronunciation of athletes’ names right is a sticking point with Woodrow.

“It’s a real bugaboo,” he said. “I hate to massacre people’s names. Even visitors. So I try and do a lot of prep work before the game and I’ll take a roster and walk across the field to anyone from a cheerleader to a manager or a coach and I go over the roster to get the right pronunciation. I’ve had people tell me they’ve never had anyone do that before. You get some strange names here and there you can really massacre and I try and get them as best I can.”

Forty years in, it’s gotten to the point Woodrow is now calling the names of the grandchildren of the first athlete’s he announced.

“There may be even some great-grandkids in there,” he joked.

Woodrow has been a fixture in the Glenwood community on and off the P.A. since the mid-1960s when he came to town to teach and serve as the high school band director. In all, he taught for 17 years in the district before retiring from teaching in the early 1980s when he went into the insurance business and then into computer programming at Benchmark Computer Systems in Omaha, a credit union software company. All five of his children and two grandchildren are Glenwood graduates while son John is an assistant coach for the Ram football team.

Besides announcing Glenwood football and track, Woodrow says he’s retired but he remains highly involved in the community. He retained his teaching certificate after retirement and is a substitute teacher in the district. He is the long time announcer of the Glenwood Homecoming Parade and several other school functions. His voice is also featured on the school district’s automated phone directory. For his work in the community and for the second time, Gordon was named Mills County Citizen of the Year in 2016, the same year he served as grand marshal for homecoming.

Music remains a big part of the former high school band director’s life. Woodrow directs the Trinity Lutheran Church Choir and is involved with the Glenwood Community Band. He’s sang with the Southwest Iowa Mens’ Chorus and continues to sing with the Glenwood Lake Park Quartet, along with Pete Jacobus, Tracy Ryun and David Young, that has performed the national anthem in and around Mills County. He can’t say that he’s ever connected the dots between his singing voice and his announcing voice.

“To me, personally, I listen to myself talk and I don’t hear anything unusual about my voice but people have come up to me and tell me I have a perfect announcing voice. I don’t recognize that but maybe singing is part of it.”

Woodrow won’t put a number on how long he’ll remain as the voice of the Rams but he does know precisely when he’ll know it’s time to hang up his microphone.

“I have no plans to quit,” he said. “So I’ll probably keep doing it until I can’t make it up the steps to the press box anymore.”