Bill Mercer obit

UNT Hall of Famer and Legendary Broadcaster Bill Mercer Dies at 99

 

He was not on the list.

DENTON, TEXAS – Bill Mercer, known to North Texas fans as the original voice of the Mean Green, died Saturday.

He was 99.

Mercer's spectacular career spanned more than 60 years as he covered one of the biggest events in United States history and taught his profession to generations of broadcasters.

Mercer served as the radio voice for North Texas athletics for more than 30 years and was the first station manager for the campus radio station. He taught sports broadcasting at North Texas for 35 years, producing broadcasters who can be seen and heard across Texas, including George Dunham, who took over as Voice of the Mean Green after Mercer's retirement, and Dave Barnett, who took over as Voice of the Mean Green after Dunham's retirement.

After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Mercer entered broadcasting and was a reporter for KRLD in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Mercer was one of the reporters who covered the events that day, and he and fellow reporters George Phenix, Wes Wise and Bob Huffaker later wrote a book, When the News Went Live, about their experiences.

Mercer did sports play-by-play work on baseball, football, basketball and pro wrestling. His career started in minor-league baseball, but he graduated to the big leagues when he worked the inaugural season of the Texas Rangers in 1972. Mercer also covered the Chicago White Sox, the Dallas Texans of the American Football League, the Dallas Cowboys, and Southwest Conference football and basketball. Mercer was a prominent wrestling announcer in the 1950s in Muskogee, Oklahoma, while also broadcasting all area sports for local radio station KMUS. By the late 1950s, Mercer had relocated to Dallas and began calling televised wrestling matches at the Dallas Sportatorium and in the studio for KRLD-TV (present day KDFW-TV) Channel 4. In early 1976, Mercer took over announcing duties for the long-running Saturday Night Wrestling program on KTVT Channel 11 in Fort Worth. He also worked for World Class Championship Wrestling from 1982 to 1987.

But Mercer was most beloved at North Texas for his decades of work covering North Texas athletic events. Mercer, who earned a master's degree from North Texas in 1966, was the announcer at North Texas when Abner Haynes and Leon King became the first African American athletes to play college football in Texas.