College Sports Information Directors of America

Elbert Chance, longtime public address announcer at University of Delaware football games for 50 years (1953-2002), passed away last week. Mr. Chance also served as the Delaware Alumni Director and was the school's first Sports Information Director in 1952-54. Affectionately known as "the voice of the Blue Hens," Chance was also a talented writer who published several books and articles including the popular One Hundred Years of Delaware Football.

"He was definitely an icon," said Scott Selheimer, UD's current Sports Information Director. "He was synonymous with Delaware football and Delaware stadium."

Information courtesy of Delaware Athletics.

• Full story from University of Delaware
• Memorial Information
• NewarkPostOnline.com: Elbert Chance, legendary voice of Delaware Stadium, dies at 90

Mr. Chance served as director of public relations from 1954-56 and headed the combined offices of Public and Alumni Relations from 1956-59. In 1959, he was named director of the Office of Alumni Relations, a position he held until he retired in 1985.

In 1984, Mr. Chance received the Outstanding Alumni Award, and he was named to UD’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001 and to the Alumni Wall of Fame in 2003.

A talented writer and researcher, he wrote countless articles and stories on the history of Delaware athletics, as well as three popular book on UD football: A Brief History of Football at the University of Delaware, 1889-1963; coauthored with John Garvick; Blue Hen Chronicles, published in 1983; and One Hundred Years of Delaware Football, published in 1989 by the University of Delaware Press.

The Elbert Chance Papers, housed in Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library, include copies of “Newark As It Was,” a weekly column he wrote for the Wilmington News Journal from 1987-1992, as well as speech he wrote on the 50th anniversary of Newark High School’s Class of 1943.

From 1997-2007, Mr. Chance edited the newsletter of the University of Delaware Association of Retired Faculty.

Photos courtesy UD.

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