For decades, each UW football game-day looked the same. The siren sounded, fans rose to their feet and the voice of Lou Gellermann echoed throughout Husky Stadium. “Hello, Dawg Fans!” he’d cry out. “Hello, Lou!” they’d heartily reply and the game began. Gellermann spent the better part of his life at UW. Long before his 40-year stint as the P.A. announcer for Husky Stadium, he was a Communication student, a member of the men’s rowing team, as well as the men’s swim team. He grew up just blocks away from campus near the Metro Theater. Gellermann rowed for all four of his undergraduate years. In 1958, his team sadly lost the Moscow Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in England; however the Soviets confidently invited them to compete again in front of their home crowd in Moscow, where the Huskies attained one of the greatest rowing victories in UW history. His first gig as an announcer was at Roosevelt High School. He landed a job as a press box announcer in 1964 at the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1968, he received his job of a lifetime when UW Sports Director John Reid offered him a position in the press box to announce the internal public address for football games and men’s and women’s basketball games. By 1985, he took over the external public address job and in 1995 dropped his basketball position to become the Husky football announcer full-time until his retirement in 2008. He is beloved by UW fans and has been a public ambassador for the university for five decades.