Rick Edwards, right, the longtime voice of the Graham Steers, interviews, from left, Ethan Hiser, Case McCoy and Jordan Dies during Edward's morning show on Kool 94.7 FM. For the last four years, Edwards and Clay Stewart have seen every Graham game while broadcasting. (Photo by Cherry Rushin)
Radio team brings Graham sports to life
by By Cherry Rushin
(Posted 12/4/2009 03:34 pm)
newsdesk@grahamleader.com
Two of Graham’s biggest cheerleaders don’t have pompoms or a megaphone. They use microphones every week to bring Steers and Lady Blues games to fans not in the stands.
Rick Edwards and Clay Stewart have been broadcasting for Graham High School as a team for the last four years, but they both go back much further in broadcasting.
Stewart’s career began 16 years ago after he attended the University of North Texas. He said he knew he wanted to be a sports broadcaster his freshmen year in high school.
“A kid that later ended up in the Kansas City Royals organization, Damon Pollard, blew three pitches by me. So I figured I needed to find some way to be involved in sports because I wouldn’t be playing much more,” he said.
Edwards decision to go into radio was a little more organic. He was working for an insurance company when a friend told him about an opening at the radio station. The position was sports producer. He was told he had to watch the Dallas Cowboys games and occasionally push a button. For him, it was like a dream come true.
In 1996, Edwards became the voice of Graham High School.
“After the last game, the guy calling the Steers’ games, Karl Lantz, said, ‘It’s been nice knowing everybody. Somebody else will be here next year.’ And he quit,” Edwards said.
The general manager at the time, Jonathan Quinn, asked Edwards if he had ever done any sports broadcasting.
“I said, ‘I’ve seen a lot.’ He said, ‘Well, you’re qualified. Let’s go,’” said Edwards.
The first game he called was a Lady Blues volleyball playoff game in Glen Rose.
“After that game, I thought I’d never call another game as long as I lived. But (Quinn) said, ‘You’re in it ‘til you quit,’” he recalled.
In 13 years, Edwards said he has gone through three broadcasters, four general managers, two radio shows, countless salespeople and four newspaper sports editors.
After studying under Bill Mercer, who announced for the Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys and World Class Championship Wrestling, Stewart worked in Lewisville and followed that football team to state. He broadcast for two Krum Bobcat basketball state championship teams, worked at a small station in Gainesville and several stations in the Metroplex. He got out of the business for a while and came back in 2005 when he moved to Graham and took his first newspaper job.
“Brad McCoy and I started in the same week. We were not a package deal,” Stewart said laughing.
He said his second day on the job here, he went to Weatherford with Edwards to broadcast a Steers basketball game over Gainesville that sent them to regionals. Later that week, they went to Lubbock for the regional championship and his second week took him to Austin for the state basketball championship.
“It was a trial by fire because I had never seen these kids play,” said Stewart.
There is basically no preparation to the broadcasts. Stewart and Edwards just look at the stats and go.
“We just always said we want these broadcasts to sound like two guys talking about football that know what they’re doing — broadcasting the game the way it is with the passion and the excitement it deserves,” said Edwards.
The two have different roles in each broadcast. For everything except girls’ basketball and softball, where the roles are reversed, Edwards does play-by-play and Stewart does color commentary.
Edwards said he tries to share everything he sees to give the audience a visual of what’s happening. Stewart said with commentary he gives the details of what happened, why it worked or didn’t.
As media representatives, the two should remain objective, but they both admit with all they have invested in Graham’s teams that’s often difficult.
“Sometimes I go from being a broadcaster to being a fan. It’s going to happen. People have told me, ‘You getting excited about the game got me excited.’ I’ve had general managers tell me to calm down. I’m not going to,” said Edwards.
“I think we complement each other. Our styles are similar, but if he’s getting excited, I try to keep calm and if I get excited, he does the same. It helps when he’s excited if I stay grounded because sometimes you can’t understand what he said. I can come in and deliver it,” said Stewart. “We’re supposed to be neutral broadcasters, but we know how hard these kids work. Neither one of us is neutral.”
Graham has a special place in the hearts of radio guys.
“I have never in all the towns I’ve been in, even in Lewisville going to state, I’ve never seen the support I’ve seen here every year,” said Stewart. “Steers are the talk of the town. You can’t go three feet without someone asking about Friday’s game.”
“There’s a lot of pride and it’s not something that showed up just because they started winning. It started from the time I was born. My parents went to high school here. My wife went. My oldest son was a captain on the team. My youngest son is playing now,” said Edwards. “The town, the class that it has — even when the teams weren’t winning, there was as much support and pride as there is now.”
But Edwards and Stewart do relish the successful season the Steers football team has been having.
“Since I went to high school here, the whole time I was in high school, I watched them get their butt handed to them every game. It’s nice to watch them go out and trash everybody else,” Edwards said. “It’s just cool to be a part of things in GHS history, cool to be a part of these memories that these kids have. This season is unbelievable getting to broadcast the 500th win; getting to broadcast a team that’s more than likely going to be the winningest team. I don’t take it lightly. It’s not just a job. It’s humbling and awesome.”
“They’ll sit around and talk about this 15 years from now and it’s cool to have been a little bitty part of that and to be able to bring it to people to be a part of it,” said Stewart.
More than anything, the two want listeners to enjoy what they do though they know its tough to please all of the people all of the time.
“I just want people to walk away and go, ‘Man, that was good.’ Instead of, ‘Man, I wish those guys would go away,’” said Edwards.
“I hope there’s none who think that,” said Stewart.
Clay Stewart (right) interviews Jordan Dies after a game. Stewart is part of the radio broadcasting team that brings Graham Steers and Lady Blues games to the Lake Country. (Photo courtesy of David Flynn)
