Bill Yancy
Bill Yancy began broadcasting Guntersville football in 1965 and marked his 420th consecutive game in his 40th season with the Guntersville vs. Albertville game Nov. 5, 2004.
Yancy considers himself lucky in that he has not missed a game since he started. According to his youngest daughter, Morri, family events were rescheduled so that he would be able to continue his broadcasts uninterrupted. “Thank goodness none of his children were born during football season,” she said, “because Mom would have been on her own!”
A pioneer in the live broadcast of high school sports in the county, Yancy becomes the first media representative in the Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame.
His WGSV-WTWX broadcast career includes almost 1,000 games. He claims many broadcast firsts in Marshall County, such as the 1967 high school football playoff game; regular seasons of Wildcat football and basketball games; Marshall County high school basketball tournament; high school state basketball tournament and Wildcat state championship; and the original Marshall County Friday night scoreboard. He broadcast Alabama’s longest high school basketball game featuring Guntersville vs. Centre, that went into five four-minute overtimes.
Yancy’s other play-by-play broadcasts featured Douglas in the state basketball tournament; the Alabama All-Star basketball game; Guntersville Little League game of the week; DAR baseball in the state finals; New Hope football; and the 1975 football classic battle of the unbeatens, Crossville vs. Sardis, both at 9-0.
Yancy earned an Associated Press award for his coverage of the world water speed record set on Lake Guntersville by the jetboat “Hustler.” He was featured on ABC Radio Weekend Sports with live coverage of the national championship limited hydroplane races on Lake Guntersville.
A community leader, Yancy organized the first adult and youth chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Guntersville and worked with the group for many years. He is a charter board member and vice president of the Marshall County Sports Hall of Fame. The biographical features in the programs and the production of the videos are his other responsibilities with the group. He has served the last 19 years as executive director of the Guntersville Housing Authority.
On Aug. 29, 2003, the occasion of his 400th consecutive Wildcat football broadcast, the Guntersville superintendent and board of education honored his loyalty, commitment and dedication by naming the press box at Chorba-Lee Stadium as the “Bill Yancy Press Box.”