The Last Ride For Brent Musburger?

With the countless hours of coverage of the pregame rituals and pomp and circumstance leading up to tonight’s Vizio BCS National Championship game, it’s hard to find something that hasn’t been touched on, prodded over, dissected and otherwise investigated as it pertains to the game. While going through all these things, I found something pretty low-key and interesting. Broadcasting veteran Brent Musburger of ESPN, could possibly be calling his last game ever. I’ll let that sink in for a second. That’s right Brent Woody Musburger is possibly calling his last game ever. 

For some this may not mean much. But for me, I’ve been watching and listening to Mr. Musburger call games and do studio pregame since I was a kid back in 1978. I always remembered getting pumped when I would turn on the television at 1230 on channel 2 CBS in New York and I hear “You are looking live”. Those words always signaled to me that it was going to be a great afternoon. I remember back in 1980 when he and an analyst on the NFL Today Show, Jimmy the Greek Snyder, got into a fight in a bar in Manhattan. 

It was quickly swept under the rug and the duo appeared that following Sunday on the NFL Today telecast with boxing gloves. Thanks for the memories. For the college basketball fan, both casual and avid, Musburger coined a phrase, made it legendary, and it will forever go down in college basketball lore. One year, the tournament was so crazy and so unpredictable that things were just basically mad, not the angry mad, but the out of your mind crazy mad.

Hence he came up with the phrase March Madness and applied it ever so eloquently to those three weeks that many of us can’t seem to live without. We appreciate it. Ironically it was during the madness in 1990 that CBS basically fired Musburger for refusing to take a lesser role to then young up and comers Greg Gumbel and Jim Nantz. 

His termination was kept kind of Hush Hush as far as media was concerned, with the incident coming to light in the second half of the game in which UNLV blew out Duke to win a championship. I don’t remember at what point it came, but Musburger himself revealed that he was leaving CBS by putting his arm around analyst Billy Packer and stating “Folks, I’ve had the best seat in the house,” he said. “Thanks for sharing it. I’ll see you down the road.” 

Who knew Brent Musburger had 20 plus years still left in him? Apparently he knew better. Amazingly enough since leaving CBS and going over to ABC / ESPN Musburger has done football- both pro and college, Major League Baseball, the NBA, golf tournaments horse racing, auto racing, soccer- you name it! While he would probably be one of the first to admit that he is not perfect and has run into his share of self-inflicted trouble, one could hardly argue with the assertion that he has been and will probably be in the top five of the best to ever did it play by play wise behind the mic. 

There is no guarantee that the contract will be renewed and mums the word from both sides as far as negotiations about another contract extension. So, if this is indeed the last ride, I as a fan had a ball listening. I say thanks for the memories, and indeed Mr. Musburger, we will see you down the road.