Of course you know the calls. Verne Lundquist has provided the soundtrack to so many iconic sporting moments, from Jack Nicklaus’ 17th-hole birdie putt at the 1986 Masters (“Yes sir!”) to Christian Laettner’s jumper at the buzzer during the 1992 NCAA tournament (“Yes!”) to Tiger Woods’ famous chip in 16th place at the 2005 Masters (“In your lifehave you seen anything like this?!”) to Auburn’s kick-six in the 2013 Iron Bowl (“An answered prayer!” »). There are many others too.
But here’s something you might not know: On the night of November 22, 1963, Lundquist was just a 23-year-old weekend television sportscaster and afternoon disc jockey. at KTBC-AM-FM-TV, in Austin, Texas, a radio-television station owned by Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird. That evening, he volunteered to drive CBS News correspondent David Schoumacher and two other CBS staffers the 60 miles from Austin to Johnson City so they could interview friends, parents and high school classmates of Johnson, who would soon become president of the United States. He never forgot that night. How can you?
But my favorite Verne story is how he met his wife, Nancy. This is something he told me many years ago for a Sports Illustrated article. Here it is, in his own words:
We met at a bar – and I hasten to add it was an upscale bar in Dallas. It was a place called Arthur. I arrived after showing the 10 p.m. news (at WFAA-TV in Dallas) and I just didn’t want to go home. Nancy and her date were at the bar and her date recognized me from local TV and invited me for a drink. He introduced me to his date and her name was Nancy Miller. It was their first date, a blind date. So we sat down and talked and her date, Raymond Willie, said to me, “Look, I know you’re single. I’ll set you up with one of my friends and we can all go to dinner. He looked at Nancy and asked, “What are you doing Thursday night?” She replied, “Nothing.” He said, “Okay, you’ll be my date and we’ll arrange Verne with my school teacher friend and we’ll go to dinner.” Meanwhile, I’m looking at Nancy thinking she’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. So Raymond finally left to mind his own business and I asked Nancy, “So how involved are you with Raymond?” She said, “Oh, it’s our first date and it’s a blind date.” » So I said, “Well, forget what he’s talking about Thursday night.” What are you doing Saturday evening? She said, “I think I’m doing what you’re doing.” »
On Sunday afternoon, Lundquist went off the air for the final time on CBS Sports after working his 40th Masters, a nice round number that he said at age 83 was the way to go.
“(CBS Sports President) Sean (McManus) and I had a conversation a few years ago about when it was appropriate to leave the stage, and he and I agreed that 40 had a nice rounded feel and that we would do. release from the Masters and CBS at the end of the second week of April of this year,” Lundquist said during a recent conference call. “I have so many wonderful memories from our visits to Augusta.”
It was an emotional week in Augusta for the CBS Sports staff due to Lundquist’s retirements. and McManusand Lundquist received so many flowers from various places this weekend, including Augusta National, ESPN, The Washington PostAnd Golf Summary. CBS Sports did a tribute featuring Verne and Nancy standing on the hole where we often heard it – No. 16.
“In your life, have you seen anything like this?”
When it comes to the legendary career of Verne Lundquist, the answer is no.
After 40 years at Augusta National, he bids farewell to the Masters. pic.twitter.com/9ZQSaKtPd5– Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 14, 2024
“They celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary this week at the Masters,” host Jim Nantz said of the couple as CBS released the video tribute. “And we will celebrate you as long as there is a Masters Tournament, Verne Lundquist.”
Lundquist already had a successful career before reaching the network level. He was the radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys from 1972 to 1984 and the sports director of WFAA-TV in Dallas. The “SEC on CBS” job was the first as a lead broadcaster for Lundquist, who has worked for ABC Sports and Turner Sports in addition to CBS. McManus offered Lundquist the play-by-play role for SEC football in 2000, which quickly became a big deal due to the SEC’s explosion nationally. It also changed the way sports fans viewed him.
“(CBS) lost the NFL to Fox in 1994, and I stayed at CBS for a year after that, and then a great guy, the late Mike Pearl, who was our Olympics executive producer, went to Turner Sports and invited me to I came there and did it for two years,” Lundquist said. “I’ll never forget that we were in Nagano, Japan, and CBS had bought the rights to the. NFL. Sean came up to me…before the men’s (figure skating) championships. We had about six or seven minutes to talk, and he tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Are you ready to.” going home? That’s probably the biggest question I’ve ever been asked in my life. So I came back, and sure enough, I came back into the Masters rotation. Hey, I’m 83 years old, I’ve been blessed with a great professional life and a wonderful personal life. I wasn’t the first to say that, but thanks for the memories.
In 2016, I traveled to Baton Rouge to watch Lundquist and the CBS SEC Football Group are working on Lundquist’s final season. What I saw in person was how much the people around him cared about him. He was 76 years old at the time and the crew looked after him like he was a father figure.
“He’s the exact same Uncle Verne that I knew in 1985, the first time I met him,” Nantz said. “Of course, I knew him very well before joining the CBS team. We were assigned to a Christmas Day football game (the Blue-Gray Football Classic) in 1985. I was in my 20s and found myself working on a show with Verne Lundquist. It’s really big. I was nervous about it. The day before the game, Verne and Nancy invited me to join them for dinner, which meant a lot. In many ways, I think it showed me what the culture of CBS was, how you act as a teammate. … Without knowing it, Verne was already mentoring me back then on how to be inclusive, how to be kind, how to be caring, how to treat people like family. It meant a lot.
It was nice to hear Lundquist’s call one last time as Ludvig Åberg, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler each reached 16th place at 6 p.m. ET. At 6:30 p.m., as Morikawa and Scheffler received loud applause from the crowd marching on No. 16, Nantz said, “And Verne, this crowd might as well defend you.”
There was Verne with a final birdie when Scheffler took a 4-shot lead.
“The hour belongs to Scottie Scheffler,” Lundquist said as the eventual Masters champion left the hole, but he really could have been talking about himself.
Verne, thanks for the memories. pic.twitter.com/pUB5nTPWk9
– Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 14, 2024
In the post-Caitlin Clark era, how can women’s college basketball maintain TV momentum? Here is my article on it.
A trio of sports media podcasts that might interest you:
• A conversation with Flora Kelly, ESPN vice president of brand strategy and content research. Kelly explains her role at ESPN, how it informs the company, how its research team works, and the macro trends she sees in sports in 2024.
• A conversation with James Andrew Miller, the bestselling author of books on CAA, ESPN, “Saturday Night Live” and HBO. Miller talks about ESPN’s Norby Williamson, who has been involved in nearly every part of ESPN’s content and business areas, programming, production and news during his nearly four decades at ESPN.
• A conversation with Jon Lewis, founder and editor-in-chief of Sports Media Watch. Lewis discusses viewership for the women’s and men’s tournaments.
Some things I read last week that interested me (Note: there are a lot of paywalls here):
• Best article I read this month — Forsaken: 14 years, 140 officers and a dark secret that consumed a small Ontario town. How the Lucas Shortreed case was solved. By Jon Wells of the Hamilton Spectator.
• Kentucky is accused of “complicity” because a former swimming coach allegedly committed sexual violence. By Katie Strang from Athleticism.
• A narco revolt drives a once peaceful nation to the brink. By Samantha Schmidt and Arturo Torres of the Washington Post.
• Masters of Green: The Black Caddies of Augusta National. By Latria Graham of Garden and Gun.
• OJ Simpson’s place in the Hall of Fame may be assured, but there’s no rule against a certain context. By Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports.
• What happens if a generation of sports fans gets swallowed up by gaming? By Steve Buckley from Athleticism.
• As part of Amazon’s Push to Crack program for Trader Joe’s — and to dominate it all. By Dana Mattioli of the Wall Street Journal.
• To build muscle, it’s the sets that count. By Alex Hutchinson of Outside.
• The next American soldiers will be machines. By Jack Detsch of Foreign Policy.
• Fifty years later, Henry Aaron’s legacy lives on in Atlanta and beyond. By Michael Lee of the Washington Post.
• A vigilant hacker destroyed the Internet in North Korea. Now he takes off his mask. By Andy Greenberg of Wired.
• Test your exercise IQ The New York Times
• The key detail missing from the narrative about OJ and race. By Slate’s Joel Anderson.
• Caitlin Clark delivered a winning segment on “Saturday Night Live.”»
• Did a guy just stop a huge cyberattack? By Kevin Roose of the New York Times.
• How AI could transform baseball forever. By Josh Tyrangiel of the Washington Post.
• What happened to the damages OJ Simpson owed the victims’ families? By Anna Betts of the New York Times.
(Photo by Verne Lundquist at Augusta National Golf Club in 2012: Augusta National / Getty Images)