VOICE OF THE HORNS EARNED HIS SPURS
Introduction to Bill Schoening by Professor Larry Carlson
Bill Schoening is one of those rare individuals who always seems to lead the league in fun. Sure, you might think, put me in place as one of America's premier play-by-play radio announcers, and I'll have fun, too.
But the Philadelphia guy who called Texas Longhorn football, basketball and baseball for more than a decade, well, he's just better at this fun stuff than the rest of us. He wouldn't say that. He doesn't need to. Schoening, set to enter his 24th season as the voice of the San Antonio Spurs, has been mic-side for, oh, 2194 straight contests. He's proud to proclaim that he made the call on every NBA game that Spurs legend Manu Ginobili ever played. Do not bet against him covering all of Wemby's games.
All along the colorful journey, he makes time to write every day. Spurs news and info, certainly. But he's also penned a book, "Stories, Sports And Songs." Those songs alluded to in the title? The unabashed music aficionado loves to pick and grin regularly with an all-star roster of Lone Star musicians and writes his own tunes. More than thirty have been published and more are in the works. And Schoening, along with his wife, Gerry – they've been married 45 years -- has covered more ground than Rand McNally. The road map for the good life winds through dozens and dozens of national parks and coast to coast in Canada.
Before earning four championship rings with Los Spurs, "Philly Billy" earned his own bona fides as a Texan. Austin wasn't the first stop. Lamesa was. The small city in cotton country south of Lubbock provided the Pennsylvania kid with his first taste of ten gallon culture. At KPET radio, Schoening covered news, voiced all major sports of the LHS Golden Tornadoes and deejayed country and western music. Three years later, he jumped at the chance to voice college sports for the Sam Houston Bearkats. Schoening grins when he says he "did six years in Huntsville...outside the walls, of course." But he doesn't joke about having covered executions at the prison in the Piney Woods. Having witnessed first hand the profound grief of victims' families and the soul searching of death row inmates, Schoening has long been involved in prison ministry. Helping in that way is yet another passion of a man with many of them.
But TLSN reached out to Bill Schoening to reminisce about his deep, extensive knowledge of the history of Longhorn sports. He called the action set to highs and lows in the coaching regime of David McWilliams, from an unthinkable loss to Baylor to the head rush of the "Shock The Nation Tour" just one season later, and narrated the best and worst of the six-year John Mackovic regime. That spanned the glories of winning the final Southwest Conference football title and the inaugural Big XII trophy, to the brutal 66-3 annihilation by UCLA, dubbed "Rout 66," less than a year later. That ruinous '97 season brought Mackovic's exit and cued the soaring achievements of Mack Brown, Ricky Williams and QB Major Applewhite, a Schoening favorite.
Other highlights in Bill's decade plus as UT's sports voice include hardball highlights from Kieschnick and Dressendorfer, Gus and Garrido. Hoops-wise, Schoening still marvels at his good fortune to be along for a G-force "elite eight" ride in the ultimate driving machine of Coach Tom Penders, known as "BMW."
Yes, it has been more than two decades since Schoening's voice belonged to the Longhorn faithful. But the listeners haven't forgotten and neither has he. Schoening seemingly has box scores, stat sheets and game stories imprinted on his brain.
"Bill is a savant," Spurs broadcast boss, Mike Kickirillo says. "Name any particular game, he's got it up there," Kickirillo smiles, tapping his head.
And if you think Schoening's love for radio stops at "the big time," think again.
A few years back, he took an invitation on a Spurs day off in the northeast, shuttled to his hometown and lent his talents to the Ivy League for a Princeton-Penn battle. He regularly joins Texas State University student broadcasters to do play-by-play for Bobcat baseball on KTSW-FM. And he'll always jump at the chance to join one of his sons, Karl – a TXST broadcast grad -- when the younger Schoening steps away from UTSA broadcast chores to call a high school game, family style. It's for the love of the game. Just pack a microphone and a radio signal.
So "tune in" below for a sampling of stories, sports and songs from Bill Schoening as he looks back on The History of Longhorn Sports with TLSN's Larry Carlson.