Bob Harris, the legendary voice of the Duke Blue Devils for over four decades, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 81, former analyst Wes Chesson announced. Harris called all five of the university’s NCAA basketball championships and a total of 1,392 Duke basketball games, which includes 13 Final Fours and 10 NCAA Championship Game appearances. Additionally, he broadcast 471 consecutive Duke football games beginning in 1976 until his retirement in 2017 as the longest tenured play-by-play announcer in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I report that Bob Harris passed away this morning with Bob’s wife Phyllis at his side, holding his hand,” Chesson wrote on the GoFundMe page, which was raising money for Harris’ hospice care. “….Bob’s life on this earth has ended, but as he announced at the end of an assured Duke victory, today Bob is proclaiming ‘How Sweet It Is.’”
Harris is a three-time recipient of the North Carolina Broadcaster of the Year award and a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. The ACC honored him with the Skeeter Francis Award in 2016 for his distinguished service to the league, and he was also granted the North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine by Gov. Pat McCrory. When Harris retired from calling Duke Athletics games in 2017, he wrote a letter to Duke fans thanking them for allowing him to represent the teams and conveyed how he would miss the excitement of the games and interacting with people working at Duke and around the ACC conference.
“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Bob Harris,” Nina King, Duke vice president and director of athletics, said in a statement. “We send our heartfelt condolences to Phyllis and the entire Harris family. Duke, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the entire collegiate athletics community has lost a true icon. For over four decades, Bob represented Duke with the utmost professionalism while delivering to our fans worldwide an acute account of Blue Devil football and men’s basketball games. He will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live forever.”
Harris started working in sports media as a part-time employee at WZKY in 1967 and eventually became the outlet’s sports director. In 1975, he moved to Durham where he worked in radio sales for WDNC, later beginning to host a sports talk show and serving as a color analyst on Duke football and basketball broadcasts with Add Penfield. After experiencing health complications, Penfield retired in the next year and Harris became the play-by-play announcer for Duke University Athletics, working in the role for the following 41 years.
“Duke lost another one of its greatest treasures with the passing of Bob Harris,” Mike Krzyzewski, former Duke head basketball coach, said in a statement. “For decades as our radio play-by-play broadcaster, Bob told the story of Duke Athletics better than anyone. He was much more than an announcer to all of us. He was a family member who absolutely loved Duke and everything it stands for. We are so thankful that it was his voice that shared our journey each season with so many Duke fans around the world. He was adored by so many of them. The Krzyzewski family offers our deepest condolences to Phyllis and their loved ones. It was my honor to call Bob my friend.”
Harris was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2020, and the disease progressed to a point where he needed consistent care and supervision. The page received an outpouring of support, raising over $101,000 to benefit Harris amid complications with his health. Harris is survived by his wife, Phyllis, daughter Bobbi Harris-McCoy, son-in-law Ron McCoy, and two grandchildren, Tripp and Meredith Winkler.
