DC Sports Extra: Uncle Verne

BY DC CUEVA                     

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This Thanksgiving weekend is Rivalry Week in college football as most of the major conferences hold their last week of regular season play prior to the conference championship games, and it also means some of the sport's most-revered rivalries will take shape. Michigan vs. Ohio State will take precedent as the country's #2 and #3 teams play in what will be a charged atmosphere. The classic matchup between Notre Dame and USC will also take place, and in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the Iron Bowl will be renewed as the #1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide take on arch rivals Auburn.
   Along with next week's SEC Championship Game, it will mark the next-to-last college football assignment for one of the most-beloved sportscasters in American television, Verne Lundquist. During our coverage of The Challenge: Rivals III earlier this summer, we looked at his legendary career when he announced that he would be stepping down from calling SEC football at the end of this college football season, as well as being the recipient of this year's Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 Sports Emmy Awards in New York City. Enjoy this excerpt from this summer.

An Excerpt from 'Pulse ExtraTime for Rivals III Episode 5 Earlier This Summer

Last month here, we joined with the sports TV community in New York for the Sports Emmy Awards as the best in the business honored their best. And while the night's most celebrated winner was the host of FOX Sports 1's Garbage Time, Katie Nolan, without a doubt the evening's guest of honor was a person who's older than all of the people who we cover here, but who is one of sports' most beloved and renowned broadcasters and for which as as sports TV fan, I have memories of and who shares a storytelling passion also.

   That night, CBS Sports' Verne Lundquist was honored with the Television Academy's Sports Lifetime Achievement Award for a broadcasting career spanning more than five decades. He began in the 1970's on the local level as radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys and sports director at one of America's top TV stations - WFAA-TV, plus working some assignments for ABC Sports. In the mid '80s, he expanded his horizons to the national level in joining CBS and becoming a fixture on the network's coverage of the NFL, NBA and college basketball, and golf, among 20 different sports. Verne was also host of figure skating during CBS' run as Winter Olympics network in the '90s including the Tonya/Nancy saga, and also worked with Turner Sports in the mid-'90s predating their NCAA March Madness partnership.
   But perhaps the signature assignment of his illustrious career was the result of, of all things, a demotion. When Dick Enberg joined CBS in 2000, the network moved Lundquist from the NFL to college football and became play-by-play man for SEC football. It was a disappointment at first, but as time gone on he has relished the role once filled by ABC's Keith Jackson as voice of college football in calling, along with analyst Gary Danielson, college football's most-revered conference and some of the game's fiercest rivalries. During his tenure, the SEC on CBS has become a prized possession of the network's college sports offering in becoming college football's top-rated telecasts. This week, it was announced that the upcoming 2016 season will be Verne's last traveling to the likes of Baton Rouge, Gainesville, Lexington, Tuscaloosa, Auburn and Arkansas...with veteran Brad Nessler to take over next season; he will still call college basketball, March Madness and golf's majors while also spending more time in the Colorado countryside with wife Nancy.
   Uncle Verne, as he's often referred to by fans and those at CBS, has provided the soundtrack to some of sports' greatest moments for five decades and being a true wordsmith in having a knack for executing the perfect words as that moment. I have memories of being in my living room for the Duke-Kentucky classic in 1992 and Christian Laettner's buzzer beater, and then on the edge of my chair seeing Tiger Woods' chip-in at the 2005 Masters. Thirty years ago, three words - "Maybe... Yes Sir" summed up the birdie that gave Jack Nicklaus his 6th Masters green jacket. With "Oh bless his heart, he's got to be the sickest man in America," he showed compassion for the Cowboys' Jackie Smith when he dropped that wide open touchdown pass in Super Bowl XIII, stunned silence when Tonya Harding broke her shoe lace in Lillehammer, and amazement when Chris Davis' Kick-Six broke Crimson Tide hearts and made his words "An Answered Prayer" part of Auburn's lexicon.
   And of course, Verne was the 18th hole announcer in the movie Happy Gilmore starting Adam Sandler, helping broadening his appeal to Adam's younger-skewing crowd. As you'll find out below in the acceptance speech and retrospective on his career, it's been written a lot of how great this elder statesman in his 70's still is, of how he's a great teammate to his broadcast partners and crew, to family and friends, and to those who meet him in the cities where he does game broadcasts. He's possessed kindness, dignity, warmth, humbleness and being a great storyteller in recollecting the history of this medium along with his calls. He's more than deserving of joining a list that includes Jim McKay, Curt Gowdy, Chris Schenkel, Pat Summerall, Howard Cosell, Vin Scully, Frank Gifford, Keith Jackson, Jack Buck, Dick Enberg, John Madden, Al Michaels and Jack Whitaker - all of whom have been honored with the Sports Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award.
   Congrats to Verne on a fantastic career in the sports television business, and enjoy the video below from the Sports Emmy's, being introduced by CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus.

UPDATE: 2/5/19
On the occasion of Verne's last football broadcast and the traditional finale to the college football regular season in the 2016 Army-Navy Game, CBS produced a one-hour special documentary on his incredible broadcast career, which is embedded below. Most recently, he released a memoir covering his five decades in sports broadcasting - which this fan just bought before CBS aired Super Bowl LIII, and he remains active at the network in now calling only The Masters and PGA Championship after also stepping away from March Madness after the 2017 tournament.

IN YOUR LIFE: VERNE LUNDQUIST from Andrew Stern on Vimeo.

- DC