By Andy Lohman

When Allen Stone was attending SMU, he had no idea that he would become the radio announcer for SMU men's basketball for 26 years. Even when he was offered the gig in 1993, he thought it would just be a fun, one-year stint.

"I thought it was going to be a one and done," Stone said. "This will be fun, I went to school there, I'm not doing anything else, it'll be great. That was 26 years ago and I never left."

Stone began as a student at SMU in 1966. Doc Hayes was finishing his run of three consecutive Southwest Conference men's basketball championships and Jerry LeVias was becoming the first African-American player in the Southwest Conference to receive an athletic scholarship. But as the Mustangs were excelling on the field of competition, Stone's career was going in a different direction.

After school, his first job in the communications business was disc jockeying at an album-oriented rock radio station in Austin, Texas.

"We sort of introduced that concept with that market, which sounds like the dark ages, for a radio station to start playing album cuts," Stone said. "That was cool, it was fun."

Stone soon slid to the news desk at the radio station. When the sports director left to work for the Chicago Sting of the North American Soccer League, management asked Stone if he could pick up sports as well, kick starting his career as a sports broadcaster.

He covered the Mustangs as a reporter from 1975-80 for Channel 4 in Dallas, and then was the play-by-play announcer for Dallas Mavericks TV broadcasts for over 10 years. Stone was in between gigs and Forrest Gregg was the athletic director at SMU, when the call came to ask Stone if he wanted to do SMU broadcasts for a year. Stone has been calling Mustangs games ever since.

This will be the last season on the mic for Stone, who will be retiring to Sante Fe, New Mexico with his wife, Mary, once the season is over. It was important for him to end his career on his own terms.

"I've been kiddingly saying for the last several years I want to get out before they tell me I'm too old," Stone said. "I've had the chance to know that it'll be my last season, and so to savor the games, savor the perspective."

In terms of the point of view he brings to a broadcast, Stone knows people are listening to him for the SMU perspective.

"Try to be as honest as I can," Stone said of his broadcast style. "But always know I'm speaking to people who care more about SMU than the other team."

Broadcasting a basketball game requires a lot more than just providing the home team perspective, however. Stone works hard to prepare a cheat sheet for himself that has all the information he wants to relay over the course of a game.

"I couldn't memorize everything about Cincinnati or Wichita State or whoever [SMU is playing]. The skill is to try to put things where you know where they are and get them when you need them," Stone said. "And for me personally, I think I'm still one of the few guys that does this in the digital age, I keep score, which keeps me in the game."

The other crucial piece to putting on a good broadcast is chemistry between announcers, especially in a fast-paced game like basketball. For Rich Phillips, the play-by-play guy, knowing when to let the color analyst jump in with a thought. For Stone, it's being able to transition into play-by-play commentary if a play breaks out in the middle of analysis.

"We have a pretty good chemistry in that way. Probably the best I've ever had even though I was responsible for producing when I was a play-by-play guy," Stone laughed.

Stone has seen a lot of SMU basketball and observed a lot of athletes up close. One habit that stood out to him was the 2016-17 American Athletic Conference championship team that featured four future pros, and how often they would insist on sitting next to coaches on bus trips to study film.

"That's very unusual for college kids," Stone said. "It showed what kind of kids they were and what they were all about."

Stone knows he'll miss SMU broadcasts, and hopes moving to New Mexico will mitigate the awkwardness of not being on the call. But overall, he's grateful for the opportunity to stay involved with his school for so long.

"I've loved staying close to SMU," Stone said." I love to be a part of it because I went to school here, I never thought I'd be able to come back and do this sort of thing. It's been kind of a love affair throughout."