Bill Melton

There’s so much history in the life of Bill Melton I’m not sure it will fit in this column. Bill’s career as a professional announcer spanned five decades and reads like a book. A few weeks ago, Bill was inducted into the Dallas ISD Sports Hall of Fame. It’s his fourth hall of fame induction. That must be some kind of record. It all began on the sidelines at Memorial Stadium.

As a sophomore, Bill saw an article in The Daily Texan announcing cheer tryouts a week before the first game of the football season. The co-head cheerleaders had been elected in the spring and there were spots for three guys and three girls. Bill had been head cheerleader at Sunset High School in Dallas. “It wasn’t about flipping or holding up girls” Bill recounts.

“It was about getting the crowd behind you and having lots of energy.” The first round was a cattle call and whittled down to eight each, and the finals were held at Gregory Gym in front of the whole student body with 25 judges as part of the first pep rally of the year. “I came out with the biggest jump I had, and in those days I could get up there.” He was selected UT cheerleader twice under this format.

“We had only five cheers in those days, and we really did lead the crowd.” The head cheerleader’s job was to use the speaker system down on the track. “We could reach half the stadium with that system. Our best cheer was the spell out.” Bill uses his big baritone voice: “Gimme a T! and the stadium would yell T! At the end we said What’s it Spell? TEXAS! What? TEXAS! What? TEXAS! It was loud.”

Bill was on the 1961 squad when Coach Darrell Royal and former player and sporting goods purveyor Rooster Andrews invented Burnt Orange. Legend has it they were trying to make a color that would hide the football. At the same time, head cheerleader Mary Gayle Weber redesigned the uniform to add fringe, borrowing from the Longhorn Band. “Mary Gayle had us all drive down to San Antonio early one Saturday morning to the Sol Frank Company and we all got measured for the new uniforms, a design that UT still uses today.”

Bill and partner Mary Gayle are on the far right.

Bill majored in Radio and Television and every Monday of the football season he would go to Coach Royal’s office in Gregory Gym with his reel to reel tape machine and conduct an interview for KUT-FM radio. “Coach Royal was very kind and a real gentleman and we were friends for many years.” Bill also announced Texas baseball and freshman football on KUT.

Bill finally got his turn at the field microphone in ’62 after being elected head cheerleader by the UT student body. “I could talk to more than half the stadium with that system. My job was to get everyone to cheer when it was important. I was blessed with a great 1962-63 squad that practiced three times a week to prepare for game day.”

In 1963, Bill and Bob Lowe decided not to cheer and instead spent their senior year as official operators of the Texas Cowboys' Smokey the Cannon. Their photo was printed in newspapers around the world when firing a 21-gun salute at the Texas Capitol in honor of President John F. Kennedy on the Monday following his assassination in Dallas. “All of the downtown businesses were closed that day. It was very quiet, and every time we fired Smokey it echoed through the city. It was eerie.” Bill takes a long pause. They also fired Smokey a month later when Texas beat Navy and Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach in the Cotton Bowl for Texas football’s first national championship.

After college Bill worked in local radio in New Braunfels and Austin, but moved on to other fields for more than a decade, eventually winding up in Dallas. In 1977, he was appointed Dallas County Treasurer and was elected six times, serving 25 years. In 1983, he was named Outstanding County Treasurer in the United States, and National County Government Leader in 1995.

Along the way, Bill started announcing with Dallas ISD football and track for ten years; Dallas Chaparrals basketball (which became the San Antonio Spurs); SMU football; and he was Voice of the SMU band for

24 years. In 1996, Bill announced men's and women’s soccer at the Atlanta Olympics, including the largest crowd to witness a women’s sporting event ever. He announced three Super Bowls, a FIBA world basketball championship, men’s and women’s world cup soccer, the Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers and two Presidential Inaugurations.

Melton also announced the Cotton Bowl Classic for 32 years, the Holiday, Sun, Aloha, Hula, Mirage, and Heart of Dallas Bowls, as well as the Komen Dallas Race for the Cure for many years. He also announced the grand opening of the Texas State Fair for 30 years, and with great pride announced at the Texas Relays for 40 years, where he would often see his old friend Darrell Royal, who knew his voice before even looking.

Bill announced numerous NCAA Basketball and Track and Field Championships; Jesse Owens Track Classic at Ohio State; Michael Johnson Track Classic at Baylor; as well as for the Big 12, Big 10, Sun Belt and Southwest Conferences.

Bill is a member of the Texas Track and Field Hall of Fame, Texas Lions Hall of Fame, Sunset High School Hall of Fame, and here is pictured at the Dallas ISD Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony in April.

Great lives are made from this thing called cheerleading. Texas keeps creating some of the best to be found anywhere. Bill says many doors were opened because of it. And at the end of our conversation, and all of his conversations Bill says in his big baritone voice “One more thing: Hook ‘Em Horns!”