One of college football’s most beloved broadcasters called his final game on Saturday. While Verne Lundquist will stick around and do a few other sports, the thrilling Army vs. Navy game was the final college football broadcast of his career.
Once the game ended and the dust settled, Uncle Verne signed off one last time from M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. He did it the only way he knew how, by telling us all stories from earlier in his fascinating life.
His first story was about the first game he ever saw, a matchup between Notre Dame and Texas in his hometown of Austin in 1952 when he was 12. As Lundquist said, this instilled a love of the sport in him. Next, he told us about the first network broadcast he did – a 1974 matchup between Ohio University and Kent State which featured Nick Saban on the sidelines for the Golden Flashes as a graduate assistant.
It ruled, just like all stories by Lundquist rule. He spoke for a little longer before thanking everyone who has watched the games, the traveling CBS Sports staff, and those who have worked with him on broadcasts over the years. He ended by getting teary-eyed as he thanked his wife, discussed how special his final year was, and sending his best wishes to Brad Nessler, who will replace him in the booth on Saturday afternoons.
This must be tough for Gary Danielson, who has been working with Verne for a long, long time. Although the pair don’t have the same personality in the slightest, that’s part of why it worked so well. There’s a mutual respect. And they became friends along the way.
From the UPROXX Sports interview of Gary Danielson earlier in the year:
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.
College football will never be the same now that Lundquist is gone. While we’ll see him during the NCAA Tournament and the Masters, everyone will certainly miss spending Saturdays with Uncle Verne.
