LDHS radio announcer calls 1,000th career game

Laurens play-by-play voice Doug Holliday

Veteran Laurens play-by-play announcer Doug Holliday may have had the most interesting statistic of the game during the Raiders’ 45-0 win over Southside Friday night at K.C. Hanna Stadium.

The game was the 1,000th called by Holliday over the course of his 42-year broadcasting career, which began at WLBG Radio. WLBG was the radio home of the Raiders, then and now.

“I’m very thankful,” Holliday said. “I came to work (at WLBG) in 1982 two days after graduating from USC. The station was waddling on its last legs at that point, and (station owner) Emil (Finley) bought it in 1983, and it’s a testament to him that he’s kept things going. You don’t find a lot of smalltown radio stations anymore.”

Holliday went on to work fulltime as a color and play-by-play announcer at Furman and was also the play-by-play voice of the Greenville Braves in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“I’ve been lucky to see a lot of cool things,” Holliday said. “Furman won the Division I-AA National Championship in 1988, and I called that, and the Braves with Chipper Jones and Ryan Klesko and others won the Southern League championship.”

Holliday also called the 1990 LDHS baseball championship for WLBG.

Broadcaster and friend Joe Kay called 550th football game at Belton-Honea Path over a 40-year career this past year, and Holliday said that inspired him to do the math on his own career.

He has been on the call for LDHS for the past 15 seasons. Looking back over notes and records, he determined his 1,000th career game would be at home against Fountain Inn, but that changed with Hurricane Helene, so the milestone happened Friday night with LDHS and Southside.

He said games have reached the family members of LDHS players in places such as Louisiana and at military outposts in Iraq.

“I’m lucky. I live in Anderson and work in Greenville, so (color commentator and WLBG sports director) Mike Hughes works hard to get everything set up and does a lot of research, so I can kind of walk in and call the game.”