UO broadcaster Terry Jonz left more than a voice

The I-5 Corridor spoke with men's broadcaster Joey McMurry about the passing of a friend and mentor.

Mike Jorgensen, Terry Jonz, Joey McMurry and Jerry Allen in the football broadcast booth.

EUGENE — Dana Altman was in good spirits by the time he made his way over to postgame radio. His Oregon men just beat Oregon State 78-71 in a game that was maybe a little closer than the coach would have wanted, but hey, a season-sweep of the Beavers is still a season-sweep of the Beavers. 

So Joey McMurry knew this would be an easy one. 

McMurry is in his sixth season as Oregon’s lead men’s basketball broadcaster and he’s certainly had more challenging interviews with the coach than after a home win in front of a lively crowd. But the thing about live radio is you still got to get that interview done — win or lose — and after McMurry finished up with Altman and packed up his gear, the 31-year-old said that that, more than anything, is what he took away from spending all that time with Terry Jonz.

“The relationship with Coach Altman, when he comes out after a loss, he doesn’t want to talk to anybody but we’re the first people that they talk to. How do you handle that? How do you do this? How long do you keep them?” McMurry said. “Terry and I had so many conversations about the stuff that goes around a broadcast to make it good that I owe so much of that to him.”

Oregon announced the passing of Jonz on Tuesday. He spent a quarter of a century on air in various roles for UO and served as the women’s basketball team’s lead broadcaster since 2005. UO estimates Jonz contributed to more than 1,500 broadcasts, many of those left a lasting imprint on McMurry.

McMurry joined the UO broadcast team in 2013 as the host of the in-house radio program Duck Insider. He was fresh out of college, impressionable and spent a whole lot of time listening and watching the way Jonz and fellow broadcaster Jerry Allen went about their business.

“Every broadcaster steals everything they ever said,” McMurry said. “All of us, at some point, we stop playing a broadcaster and become one, but in order to play the broadcaster you’ve stolen so much stuff from so many people. 

“I think if you listen to me call basketball, it’s very similar to the way that Jerry and Terry called basketball. The biggest thing I picked up from Terry is the rollercoaster of it. He was really good at knowing there were high points and low points throughout a game, and it’s not just what you’re saying but how you’re saying it. I thought he was really good at that and finding the flow of how to go about that.”

Admittedly, it’s been a challenging week for McMurry. Over the years as the host of Duck Insider, McMurry has often had the responsibility of eulogizing those who have passed with ties to the university. Some are harder than others, like Tuesday, when McMurry told his director Scott Phillips before the show to have his mic on just in case he needed some help getting through.

“It’s hard, when you’re around a big organization, it’s always like, how much do you do on these things? I struggled on that with Terry,” McMurry said. “I could have done the whole week on Terry. The whole week could have been shows on him, but he wouldn’t have wanted that. He would have wanted us to get back to the game. I think he would have been the first to say have the moment, remember and celebrate, but let’s play basketball.”

McMurry said they’re planning a tribute to Jonz for the third segment of this evening’s pregame show before the Oregon women tip against Cal at 7 p.m. That’ll be another tough one, McMurry said.

Other moments sneak up on you.

When McMurry got home from work on Tuesday and gave his son a hug, he happened to catch a glimpse out of the corner of his eye the bottle of bourbon Jonz had gifted him to celebrate Jordy’s birth. Nobody, McMurry said, was more excited about him becoming a dad than Jonz.

That hit him. And he knows another moment like that is coming in April, too.

“The women’s broadcast will be hard because that was his home,” McMurry said. “But I think for me, Jerry and Jorgy, it’s going to be the spring game. That’s when we all would have been together.”

— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor