Larry Ward Stepping Down as Voice of UTC Women’s Basketball
(gomocs.com) Pictures, pieces of net and championship rings along with the memories of Chattanooga Mocs women’s basketball are what Larry Ward holds dear. The iconic voice is silencing his mic after 26 seasons with the program.
“Wes Moore let me cut down the net,” Ward remembered after one of many SoCon Tournament championship wins. “I got to climb the ladder. That was kind of exciting. It was a memorable thing. It was a little thing, but big. You’re part of the team when you get to do that.”
Ward called more than 800 games for the Mocs and saw UTC win 70 percent of the time. That included 15 trips to the NCAA Tournament including the memorable win over Rutgers in 2004.
He started in 1988-89 season with Coach Craig Parrott calling the Mocs first-ever game in the NCAA Tournament that year. In 12 seasons with Wes Moore, trips to the Big Dance were almost expected as he called eight of Moore’s nine and two to the WNIT.
Following that run, he was behind the mic for Hall of Fame Coach Jim Foster, former Moc turned coach Katie Burrows and concluded his time making back-to-back journeys to the postseason with first-time Head Coach Shawn Poppie.
He called games in California, Texas, Washington, New York and Mexico to name a few, giving a mental picture back home to those who couldn’t travel to watch the (Lady) Mocs in person. Even opponent’s fans followed games as called by the “Voice”.
But now it is time to turn the mic over to someone else.
“Now is the time with the transition to a new coaching staff,” Ward said. “I wish them luck and winning seasons in the future, but my travel days are finished. I’m tired. I no longer travel with baseball. I can do the games virtually. I can’t really do that with women’s basketball. It’s time.”
When he first started, women’s basketball on the radio was almost unheard of across the country. Most often, it was teams from the Power 5 conferences. Almost no one at the mid-major level was footing the bill.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Ward said of how the gig got its start.
Ward posed a question to Parrott. “I said, why aren’t you on radio?” Ward recalled. “The guys are. Why aren’t you?”
Parrott didn’t have an answer for that but sent him to then-athletics director Harold Wilkes who got behind the idea right away.
Ward went to work finding sponsors and a radio station to call home for three seasons.
From the start, Parrott acknowledged it wasn’t exactly a monetary success. “It was tough to get financially going. We shared a room on road trips, and we had lots of good talks.”
“It wasn’t a profitable situation,” Ward added. “By the end of the third year, I went to Craig and told him, but said I’d help in any other way.”
Ward moved to public address for the women’s team over the next six years. During that time, the SEC women’s basketball tournament was hosted by Chattanooga and Ward returned to the airwaves to call the games.
Local radio personality Chris Goforth lent his voice to the women’s basketball program for three seasons, ending after Wes Moore’s first. The next two seasons saw Moore lay the foundation for what was to come, but not on the radio.
After reaching the NCAA in his third campaign, Moore wanted the games back on the air and approached Ward in his job as the broadcaster for the Chattanooga Lookouts. However, it wasn’t until later that year that Frank Burke, owner of the Lookouts, got involved.
“After two seasons without radio broadcasts including an NCAA appearance where our fans had to listen to the one-sided version produced by our opponent, a generous Frank Burke decided to change that,” Moore said.
A conversation by Burke with Oval Jaynes, athletic director at the time, led to an inquiry as to what it would take to get women’s basketball back on the air.
“Frank told me to sell the advertising, and I had someone lined up to do the broadcast,” Ward said. “I went on vacation. Frank had changed his mind and wanted me to do it and the rest is history.”
That history included 18 regular season Southern Conference titles, 15 SoCon Tournament titles, 15 trips to the NCAA Tournament and four ventures into the Women’s NIT.
“Larry brought great excitement and energy to our program, which helped grow our brand,” Moore said. “Consequently, attendance skyrocketed and so did winning. Larry brought ‘Lady’ Mocs basketball to life in his broadcasts my last 12 years and 11 more after my tenure. He will be sorely missed by Mocs fans everywhere.”
Ward was behind the mic when UTC became the 39th team in NCAA Division I history to reach the 900-win plateau. He shared with fans Wes Moore 500th career victory as well Jim Foster’s 800 and 900th victories.
The Mocs mounted upset wins over No. 20 Tennessee in 2012 and in a span of three weeks in 2014, UTC beat the fourth-ranked Lady Vols and No. 7 Stanford, both in the Roundhouse, propelling UTC into the AP Top 25. Ward was a witness and accomplice to them all and so many more stunning victories.
He saw changes in the game over his time on the sidelines. From the cozy confines of Maclellan Gym to the vast expanse of McKenzie Arena. Fans adapted and filled the seats in the Roundhouse. That was helped along by Moore and winning games.
“The fans realized that the game is more than girls playing basketball,” Ward said. “It’s intense, possibly more so than the men’s game. Watching the game never gets dull. You get beat sometimes, but the enthusiasm from the fans never waned. It kept building.”
In 2004, Ward was on the call for UTC’s historic victory over Rutgers in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in McKenzie. His voice rose to be heard above the crowd and across the airwaves as Katie [Galloway] Burrows banked in “the shot” that brought the crowd to its feet.
“That was such a huge moment,” he recalled. “That shot turned the thought of women’s basketball around at UTC. People thought ‘Wow! This is fun.’ Attendance started to pick up immensely.”
He will now move from the sidelines and relive the good ole days with former players and coaches from the stands.
“Larry has been such a faithful supporter of women’s basketball for as long as I can remember,” Burrows said. “From my playing days and through my coaching years, Larry never missed an opportunity to provide radio coverage for his girls. The support behind the scenes was even greater. He is a big part of the UTC family and will be truly missed.”
Ward will continue with the Chattanooga Lookouts where he is in his 36th season with the AA minor league farm team of the Cincinnati Reds. He is a member of three Halls of Fame including the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame (2005), Southern League Hall of Fame (2015) and in 2022 was inducted into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame.
Chattanooga women’s basketball will continue to excite and draw fans to the game, but it will never sound quite the same.
