Verne Lundquist Called His Last SEC Game, And CBS Honored Him With A Beautiful Tribute Video

The SEC on Saturday afternoons will never sound the same. The 2016 SEC Championship Game served as the swan song for play-by-play man Verne Lundquist on Saturday, as the Alabama Crimson Tide rolled past the Florida Gators in grand fashion to secure their place as the No. 1 seed in the upcoming College Football Playoff.

While the two teams were essentially playing out what became a (very) lopsided contest on the field, various tributes were taking place to Lundquist, who is retiring as the centerpiece of SEC on CBS after 17 seasons (although he’ll still be calling the Army-Navy game and some college basketball games). One of those tributes came from the network itself, as CBS did a phenomenal job in putting together a comprehensive video to honor one of the most beloved play-by-play voices in the sports world.

Gary Danielson explained why Lundquist is so beloved in an UPROXX Sports interview earlier this fall:

Maybe it’s just me, and I deal with my thoughts. But I feel lucky to have four or five close friends who I could call if I needed something and no matter what they’d drop whatever they were doing to help. What’s really struck with me with Verne is he might have 100 dear, close friends. That’s not Verne calling them that, that’s people coming into our press boxes and saying Verne is that close to them. What a tremendous guy he must be to have people think about him that way.

We did an interview one time, and we did it separately about our relationship. Verne did his, and I went in afterward. The guy saw us later and asked, “do you two guys even know each other?” We were so far apart in what we thought was important in how we prepared and what we liked about the broadcast. Verne reveled in the stories, and I talked about the Xs and Os and how I like to keep the booth clean. Verne looks so forward to meeting his friends. And the guy said he was surprised we could even work together.

Verne can’t wait to walk through The Grove, and I just want to get up in the booth and start looking at my notes. It was just so interesting. People think in a working relationship that you have to love the same things. You don’t. There can be a mutual respect and a mutual goal of doing our job well, and it works. We’re friends, but we’re not great friends. It’s more that we can trust each other to do our job when it’s called for. And that’s why it’s worked.

We’ve done close to 200 games, and we talk to six or seven players and five or six coaches. That’s close to 1,000 people we’ve talked to. Of that 1,000, the guy would walk out of the room, and Verne would say, “What a great guy. I really liked that guy.” Or, “That kid really impressed me. He’s going to be great someday.” I think that says a lot about a person who sees the good in everybody. That comes across in the broadcast. People sense it with him.

Images and sounds range from recent moments like Joe Namath kissing Lundquist in the booth during the 2016 to some of the best calls of Lundquist’s career, and the video even features old partner Todd Blackledge, as well as current partner Gary Danielson. Beyond that, CBS secured interviews from various SEC head coaches, highlighted by Nick Saban, and the type of respect paid to Lundquist by those important figures in the sport is also reflected by fans across the country and, especially, the South.

College football is losing a phenomenal ambassador for its most prominent broadcast, but the memories left by the sheer sound of Verne Lundquist’s voice will emanate forever.

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