Jerry Allen is the soundtrack of the Ducks success. Every seminal moment, every touchdown, every countdown to the closing seconds, every big play is dubbed with the audio of a Jerry Allen call.
He’s been the Oregon play-by-play voice since 1987, on the mike for 27 years, 23 of it partnered with former Webfoot quarterback Mike Jorgensen. “Jorgy,” as Allen affectionately calls him, explained the reason for his broadcast teammate’s enormous popularity and longevity as Voice of the Ducks:
“He loves the Ducks, he loves his job, he loves his community. He pours his heart out for everything that happens, from daylight to dusk, when it comes to auctions, fund-raisers, everything. He’s the Green and Yellow. He truly bleeds green and yellow.” [From the book 100 Things Oregon Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die, by Rob Moseley and Chris Hansen.]
Allen is a native Oregonian who graduated from Grants Pass High School. He began his broadcasting career doing baseball with the Southern Oregon A’s of the single A Northwest League. Before he came to Oregon, the Ducks had employed nine different broadcasters over the previous 15 seasons.
He’s guided Duck fans through those first hopeful seasons, including the 1989 Independence Bowl, the first bowl for UO since 1963, and the 1994 Rose Bowl, their first Granddaddy since 1958.
Objectivity is overrated. Allen’s rumbling, rambling tones have captured Duck fans’ imagination and emotions perfectly at crucial moments. He isn’t a great technical announcer with economy and precision, but he excels at capturing moments, conveying the excitement of the game and filling the room with the experience of being there. Fans who have work to do in the back yard, on a fishing boat, or painting the house have relied on him, or fans who’ve just gotten tired of the inane drone of network announcers who report the obvious and tell the same stories and blather on in the same coaching cliches down after down. Thousands synch up their TVs to the Oregon Sports Network call. It’s like listening to a buddy who can talk fast, someone you can trust to tell the story from an Oregon perspective.
Everyone recognizes Allen is a homer, but applied to him, it isn’t a pejorative term. He’s consistent about it, and genuine. He gets emotional talking about getting emotional.
Allen told Moseley and Hansen, “You get to be very good friends with the coaches, and even, in the short time they’re here, the players. You have feelings for them. You care about them as people.”
It’s the caring that comes through on the radio. With Allen you may not always know the score, the time and the down, but you’ll always know how the game feels and whether it’s a good play or a bad play for the Ducks.
And that’s what we wanted to know anyway.
The two signature calls of Allen’s long, memorable career are “The Pick,” indelibly impinted in every Oregon fan’s brain and featured in the pre-kickoff stadium highlights on the Jumbotron, and his call in the closing seconds of the 2010 Civil War as the Ducks clinch their first-ever national title berth.
Allen has maintained his loyalty and humility through all of it. “I don’t feel like anybody other than just a guy who was born in Grants Pass and fell into a great job.” He still hosts the banquet for the Cross Country team and does the call-in shows and promotional tours, tireless in his effort and preparation, at practice every day, working a sport in every season.
Here’s hoping The Voice of the Ducks gets one more career call before he hangs up his media badge. Duck fans want to tip one more glass to the man who’s captured three decades of amazing memories.
(Photo of Allen by Eric Evans of goducks.com)
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