Bob Barry Sr Was One Hell of an Announcer

I grew up listening to Bob Barry announce OU Sooner sports. As a junior high student at Classen High School, the same Classen that Mr. Barry would graduate from in 1946, I remember one Saturday in October (circa 1967) when I was painting house numbers on driveways in northwest OKC for the school’s Key Club.  Iowa St or Kansas was the opponent, and the best college play by play man that I had ever heard was dolling out “35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5 TOUCHDOWN OKLAHOMA!”  Mr. Jack Ogle, Bob’s great color analyst would then bark out “that was a great run by Steve Owens.”  Those two great voices ring in my ears today just as they did forty or more years ago.  The greatest play by play man in OU history, Walter Cronkite, Curt Gowdy, and John Brooks included, Bob Sr was OU sports on WKY Radio or whatever station carried the games. No contest, the best.  Sure he lost some in his final years on the air but the Great One never announced a bad ball game. He was a total professional and in the long of it, a great human being.  (Bob Barry passed on Oct. 29,2011)

PS:  One final thought about Bob Barry Sr. In all my times listening to him on the radio I can never remember him saying something that my kids couldn’t hear and he never embarrassed the schools he repsesented, the game he called, or himself. Never ever. Now that is a professional who was a good positive man. He knew his business and he respected his listeners.