Class of 1984

Wes Durham is a 1984 graduate of Apex High School. While at Apex High School, Wes was a two-year varsity letter winner in basketball while also participating in JV basketball and JV football. As an avid sports fan, Wes was also the Sports Editor for The Epilogue, which is our school’s yearbook.  While at Apex, Wes also served as a public address announcer for the boy’s soccer team and the baseball team as well. Wes got his passion for sports announcing honestly as his late father, Woody Durham, is one of the most decorated announcers of all-time and served for forty-years as the “Voice of the Tar Heels” for the University of North Carolina football and basketball programs.

The support Wes received from friends and teachers was important, but the announcing experience that he gained at Apex High School helped spark a lifelong career. After graduating from Apex, Wes attended Elon and was on the air for 150 football and basketball games. After graduating in 1988, he worked first at Redford University, then for a year at Marshall University. He was hired in 1992, to broadcast Vanderbilt football and basketball. In Nashville, he also worked for the legendary WSM-AM for a year, where he won a pair of AP Awards for “Best Sports Report” and “Best Play-by-Play.”   

In the fall of 1995, Wes was hired by Georgia Tech to be the university’s new radio voice. Beginning with the 2004 NFL season, Durham also took on the radio play-by-play duties for the Atlanta Falcons in addition to his responsibilities at Georgia Tech, becoming one of the very few to broadcast major college football and the NFL simultaneously. In 2005, he was honored by the Atlanta Sports Council with the Furman Bisher Award for sports media excellence in the Atlanta market.

In 2013, after 18 years and nearly 800 football and basketball broadcasts with Georgia Tech, Durham made the move to television as the lead broadcaster for ACC football, basketball and baseball games on Fox Sports South and Raycom Sports. In the winter of 2018, Durham began a partnership with Mark Packer, first on radio with SiriusXM and now with the ACC Network/ESPN. Packer and Durham is a daily show highlighting personalities and stories from within the conference.

Durham continues to broadcast ACC football and basketball for the ACC Network, in addition to his Falcons games in the fall. He has been recognized as being one of the best in the business and was a 2015 inductee into the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame. Eleven times he has been named the “Georgia Sportscaster of the Year” by the National Sports Media Association, and was honored by the Elon University School of Communications as their “Distinguished Alumnus” in April of 2013.

Wes Durham has often used his platforms to promote Apex High School whether it is mentioning the Apex Cougars when on local sports radio stations or giving back to the Apex High Community. Today, the students who are selected as the best in the Apex High School Communications classes receive “The Durham Family Award for Journalism” thanks to Wes Durham’s impact at Apex and as an ambassador for our school, as he continues his broadcasting career. Durham lives in Cartersville, Georgia, with his wife, Victoria, and has twins, Emily and Will.