Trip Durham Will Be New "Voice of Cameron"

Last year was the final year of Dr. Art Chandler's magical 40 year run as the "Voice of Cameron". He leaves behind quite a legacy of missing only 3 games minus a short Army Reserves stint with the original Desert Storm Operation over 39 seasons of Duke Basketball in Cameron.

Dr. Chandler is best known for his "Here Comes Duke" introduction at the urging of former Duke player Alaa Abdelnaby. As he said in this GoDuke.com article towards the end of his career,

“I’ve always felt that a P.A. announcer is there to give information, be clear, be concise and not try to add anything to the atmosphere other than dignity and decorum,’’ Chandler said. “Referees and P.A. announcers should be noticed only if they make bad mistakes.”

While he can certainly not be replaced, all good things must come to an end eventually. Knowing this would be Dr. Chandler's final season as the PA Announcer at Duke, the program auditioned a select few candidates throughout the undefeated 17-0 home season last year, and one has been chosen to take Dr. Chandler's spot behind the microphone. Duke Hoop Blog has learned that Trip Durham has been tabbed as the new "Voice of Cameron".

If you are not familiar with Trip Durham the man, he has quite an impressive story. His professional career has allowed him to be intimately involved with college basketball in general, but more specifically at Elon University.

At Elon, Durham was not only the Associate Athletic Director, but also served as the Executive Producer and play-by-play announcer of Elon University’s commercial radio broadcasts for football and men’s basketball.

Trip has quite an impressive portfolio of audio clips if you want to get a taste of what's to come next year: http://tripdurham.com/portfolio.php

But according to his bio, Trip got his start in announcing as a Sophomore in High School, quite by chance:

In 1984, I was a sophomore at Walter M. Williams High School in Burlington when Ronnie Wall, then Director of Athletics, stopped me in the hallway and asked me a seemingly benign question. “Durham, can you handle doing public address at the JV football game tonight?” Even though I had never picked up a microphone, I did not want to disappoint a teacher.

My answer was simple. "Sure." The answer changed my life forever, because that October night was the start of an amazing twenty-five-year journey. I have since been the public address announcer for countless sporting events, including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and even short-track auto racing. I have also served as a play-by-play broadcaster for over a hundred collegiate football and basketball games, calling thrilling come-from-behind victories and heart-breaking last-second losses. For each game, when I turn on the mic, I still have the same excitement that I had the very first time, a quarter of a century ago.

While Trip clearly had quite a memorable time announcing football and basketball games for the Elon Phoenix, his job didn't survive a departmental restructuring after 14 years of employment and he found himself unemployed in the middle of a down job market in March of 2009. Playing off his branding and marketing past, Trip did not take the road less traveled, but instead took out a billboard advertising himself and his website, TripDurham.com.

Read this story about Trip's ingenious attempts to brand himself and make lemons out of lemonade.

This kind of ingenuity and determination has clearly led Mr. Durham to become the PA Announcer in one of college basketball's most hallowed arenas, widely recognized as the best atmosphere for a basketball game. While the "Voice of Cameron" can never be replaced, we seem to be in some very good hands with Mr. Trip Durham.