Dori honors Lou Gellerman, longtime Husky announcer

Taken from Monday’s edition of the Dori Monson Show.

Not only was Lou Gellerman the stadium announcer, before that he was part of the University of Washington crew team that beat the Russians back in 1958.

He’s a bit of a Husky legend.

In KIRO 7’s tribute to Lou, he explained how he got the stadium gig.

“When I went to the University of Washington, I started coaching. The guy who was the sports information director, John Reed, he just ups and says, ‘We got a job opening here. Are you interested?’ And I said, ‘Well tell me about it.’ And it was doing basketball and for Roosevelt. I did it and I got to learn that way.”

He talked about overcoming the most difficult challenge. He didn’t want to just be a voice as opposed to the TV guys.

“You’re announcing basketball with ‘Hello, Dawg fans.’ Well that got to be a signature event. People wanted to do that and acknowledged it by saying “Hello Lou” and boy, was that a high. Normally, you’re a faceless noise when you do radio. You get on TV and people feel like you’re their next-door neighbor. In radio, it’s tough to bust through that.”

It is tough. You said it brother. The best part is:

“When you’re sitting on top of 72K people and they react to something you say or do, it’s moving.”

For a couple of years, right before he became the stadium announcer up until ’86, he was the press box announcer. When I was a student at the UW and up there for every Husky game day Saturday doing the the play-by-play for KCMU – the UW campus radio station – it’s just one of those many voices that has tracked through an entire lifetime.

Taken from Monday’s edition of the Dori Monson Show.