Oklahoma high school football radio institution 'Friday Night Finals' bids farewell

Greg Merick used to go on hunting and fishing trips to out-of-the-way places in Oklahoma, and inevitably, there would be stops at convenience stores for supplies.

A couple of times after he was asked to show an ID to make a purchase, the clerk took his driver’s license, gave it a look, then looked at Merick with an inquisitive eyebrow raise or head tilt.

“Are you the Greg that hosts 'Friday Night Finals'?” the clerk asked.

Merick was always happy to say yes.

For nearly two decades, he was part of a high school football scoreboard radio show called "Friday Night Finals." It originated in Oklahoma City, but it was broadcast every Friday night during football season by affiliates all over the state.

Including some out-of-the-way places.

“We would get to talking about high school football,” Merick said of those astute convenience-store clerks, “and my buddies would be in the truck going, ‘Come on!’”

"Friday Night Finals" was a thread that knit together the high school football fabric of our state for 35 years. There was a time it could be heard from border to border, and even into a couple of surrounding states.

But a couple of weeks ago, current host Joel Reagan announced on the show’s Facebook page that it won't be on the air for the 2023 season. While he didn’t rule out a return in 2024, the show’s website indicates it had only seven affiliates.

"Friday Night Finals" once had upwards of 60 affiliates.

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“It is amazing to see what this show became over the years,” Reagan wrote on Facebook.

“I think everyone involved saw our role as a caretaker, to keep the show going and thriving and to highlight the many high school football players and teams that compete each Friday night.”

It’s ironic Reagan announced the show’s end on social media; the internet likely led to the demise of "Friday Night Finals." People don’t have to listen to the radio to get a score anymore. They can pull up any number of score apps on their cell phone and find any score they want, even small-class teams and far-flung schools.

“It was really big before the access of the internet,” said Jim Reagan, Joel’s uncle who hosted the show for 15 years. “Once people got things like Skordle and other deals, we didn’t have as much interest in it.

“It’s definitely the end of an era.”

Even though a radio show with high school football scores might not be as popular now as it once was, that doesn’t sully the memories of those who had a hand in "Friday Night Finals" since its creation in 1988.

“It was a great experience,” Jim Reagan said. “The best experience I’ve had in broadcasting sports.”

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'They wanted to make sure that their school got mentioned'

"Friday Night Finals" had its genesis as a show aired locally in Oklahoma City on KTOK, but when Danny Henderson joined the show as host in 1988, it started being broadcast more widely.

It lasted only 45 minutes in those days.

“Of course, it’s fast and furious with only one guy trying to get as many scores as you can, maybe a report or two,” Henderson said.

Three years later, Jim Reagan joined Henderson, taking scores over the phone at first, then becoming a co-host after a year.

Over time, the show expanded. More time on the air. More people working behind the scenes. A few spouses and children were even pressed into duty and asked to answer the phones over the years.

But at the heart of the show were the scores ― and whoever was working for "Friday Night Finals" did whatever they could to get them.

“We would get our scores by calling Sonics in the towns,” Reagan said. “Also police and sheriff departments ― ‘Hey, you gotta county sheriff or police officer out at the ballgame tonight?’

“And of course, we got calls from coaches and fans as well.”

Officials called in scores of games they’d just called, too.

Same for radio broadcasters from around the state, who'd often provide short game reports that were played during the show.

But once the start of the show got pushed back before 10 p.m. ― 9:45 at first, then to 9:30 ― there weren’t always a ton of games over when "Friday Night Finals" began. So, the “Finals” part of the show’s name went out the window for a bit and scores “entering the fourth quarter” or “heading into the final minutes” were totally acceptable.

“You had to have something,” said Merick, who joined the show in 2004. “The most nerve-wracking was when it’s 9:40 and I’ve got six scores.”

The lack of scores never lasted long.

Usually by about 10 p.m., the phones in the studio at 50 Penn Place were ringing non-stop.

“The dam broke,” Henderson said. “In a good way. You just had so many people calling in and reaching us in some way or another to give us scores because they wanted to make sure that their school got mentioned.”

And everyone who worked on the show wanted to get every school mentioned.

“We really made an effort to get all the towns, no matter how big they were,” Jim Reagan said. “All the schools, get their score.

“We wanted the Corn Bible Academy score just as much as we wanted Jenks.”

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'An institution on Friday nights'

Jim Reagan left "Friday Night Finals" in 2007 when he moved to Durant to work for a radio station there. Among his duties was broadcasting Durant High football games, and his color analyst happened to be David Brese, who was the head football coach at Durant for several years in the 1990s.

One of the first things Brese told Reagan was that the team would put the bus radio on "Friday Night Finals" on the way home from road games.

If Durant had won, the players would wait to hear the final.

“That old bus would shake and stop when you’d give the score,” Reagan remembers Brese telling him.

Reagan couldn’t help but feel proud to have been part of not only "Friday Night Finals" but also the high school football scene in Oklahoma.

“It’s really cool,” he said.

Henderson believes the show created a community every Friday night in the fall.

“That’s because you’ve got so many people who are tuned in, literally and figuratively, to high school football,” he said.

“I just think that there was something unique about the product that we delivered. It’s not us. It was just the fact that Oklahoma high school football is huge.”

And of course, everyone who was part of "Friday Night Finals" over the years laments that it will no longer be part of Oklahoma’s high school football scene.

“Everything changes, but it was almost like an institution on Friday nights,” Merick said.

There's sadness for what is lost and gratitude for what was.

Henderson remembers how exciting every single show was.

“Somebody might call it stressful, but … it’s not anything that you went home with heartburn or tossing and turning, couldn’t go to sleep,” he said. “It was fun.

“It really was a lot of fun.”

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma high school football radio show ends after 35 years on air