Gwynn. 82, was a tough guy long before he played football at A&T or walked into a radio booth to broadcast N.C. A&T games. His toughness is genuine, sincere and carved in a history of segregation, pioneering achievements and leadership qualities that made him one of the best school administrators in Guilford County over a 30-year span.

Spencer Gwynn, as he is commonly known has endured all the many joys and criticisms that come along with being the play-by-play radio voice of A&T football and it all ends this Saturday when the Aggies close out the 2014 football season against the Morgan State Bears.

He grew up in Reidsville, N.C. with a religious mother and grandmother and a stern father. Spending summers in South New Jersey prepared the young Gwynn for his professional life in a nonconventional way.

“I ran with the neighborhood gangs,” Gwynn recalled about his days in New Jersey. “They were from all different backgrounds, Italian, African-American, it didn’t matter. I think I did it because I had no sisters and brothers. I had to take care of myself with either my mind or my fist. I learned quickly that it was easier to solve problems with my mind.”

He attended A&T where he played fullback, punter and left side linebacker under Bill Bell. While he holds the record for the longest punt in school history, a 76-yarder, he vividly remembers his only shanked punt.

A trip through the upstairs of Gwynn’s home in Greensboro is like a museum of A&T football. There are numerous black and white pictures of him donning his No. 31 jersey for the Aggies.

“These memories mean a lot to me,” said Gwynn as he placed more photo albums on his pool table inside his home. “You can’t describe the type of lifelong bond you have with the guys you play with.”

Gwynn, a N.C. A&T Sports Hall of Famer, initially wanted to be a social worker but could not find work in New Jersey. Upon returning to Aggieland to get a teaching certificate he met an old acquaintance, a high school principal and football official, who remembered him as a high school football player.

“I was trying to do my student teaching at the time, so he teamed me with one of his best teachers,” Gwynn said. “She didn’t want student teachers at the time, but he convinced her to take me. I did such a good job, she highly recommend me. When a job came open at the school, he brought me back full time.”

The school was historic J.C. Price School in Greensboro. There, Gwynn would meet a young man just leaving the military named Mel Swann. The two would form a media team that would shape the history of A&T radio for years to come.

Gwynn’s career in academia flourished and led him to become an assistant principal at Greensboro’s Grimsley High School. He was the first black administrator at one of the main high schools in Greensboro which featured 2,200 students. He later became the principal at Lincoln Middle School in Greensboro.

After retirement from the school system he took a job at VIF International Education in Chapel Hill. In the late 90’s, there was a shortage of teachers, so Gwynn was tasked with traveling to other countries to recruit teachers. He took those teachers back to Chapel Hill and trained them to teach in America.

Still, nothing compares to being the play-by-play man of A&T radio. It all began in his car in 1963. WEAL, a local radio station in Greensboro, had announced for months on commercials that the station was going to start carrying A&T football games.

“I thought to myself, I’d like to do those games,” Gwynn recalled.

The station manager at the time already had his radio team set but Gwynn talked his way into a 15-minute audition by explaining his knowledge of the program as a former player.

The rest is history. In 1974, he invited his old friend, former roommate and colleague Swann on the broadcast to do color commentary. The two remained broadcast partners until health problems forced Swann to leave the booth in 2011.