Murry Calls 1000th Game at WashU

Jay Murry, the “Voice of the Bears” since 2009, reached his 1,000th broadcast for WashU on April 13, in the second game of a WashU Softball doubleheader sweep of Case-Western Reserve University.

Murry, a three-time winner of the Missouri Sportscaster of the Year award from the National Sports Media Association (NSMA), began his WashU broadcasting career with a full football radio play-by-play season in 1994, and the call of WashU Football home games on cable TV in 1995. From there, Murry served as the News and Sports Director for 14 years at KWRE-AM/KFAV-FM in Warrenton, Missouri. His accomplishments there included winning his first two NSMA awards, honors from the Missouri Broadcasters Association and Missouri Associated Press, and calling over one thousand high school games in football, basketball, baseball, and softball.

Murry left KWRE and KFAV in March 2009, and in September of that year, he joined volleyball announcer Bill Bommarito to anchor the beginning of WashU’s sports online streaming service. Murry began with football and men’s/women’s basketball play-by-play broadcasts, and he has since added men’s/women’s soccer, baseball, softball, tennis, swimming and diving, and track and field to his yearly announcing accomplishments at WashU. He also won his third NSMA award upon his return to WashU.

Murry also has the unique distinction of announcing a successful Guinness Book of World Records attempt. In 2016, WashU men’s swimmer Kevin Hays set a new world record by solving eight Rubik’s Cubes underwater in one breath. Murry’s call of that attempt on YouTube has garnered over 10 million views.

As he gets older, Murry has increased his play-by-play activity, averaging over 80 broadcasts in the last nine school years. That includes missing a year of broadcasts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Murry’s highest yearly total was 102 in the 2018-19 school year, and he has so far announced 87 games in 2023-24 with four more games left on the regular-season play-by-play schedule at WashU.

With this annual frequency of games, Murry maintains his broadcasting vigor by training for his Rett Gets Rocked solo ultramarathons every year. Those 24- and 36-hour ultras raise funds for Rett syndrome research; split between the Rett Spectrum Clinic in St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and the International Rett Syndrome Foundation (IRSF). In seven editions of the Rett Gets Rocked initiative, nearly $30,000 has been raised.

Murry is a resident of St. Charles, Missouri, along with his wife Cathy. They have three children: Jason (32), Shelly (24), and Mitchell (21). When he is not broadcasting WashU games, Murry is a special education paraprofessional at Fort Zumwalt West High School in O’Fallon, Missouri.