Praise for the Georgia Bulldogs doesn't come easy here...in fact under normal circumstances it doesn't come at all but, the death of Legend is not a normal occurrence.
Larry Munson died of complications due to pneumonia yesterday. From 1966 to 2008, he was the voice of Bulldog football...the voice of Georgia. He was the most partisan, biased, irrational caller that ever got behind a microphone. The games turned him into an emotional wreck...just like the fans. Maybe the fact that he was born in Minnesota accounted for his fanaticism...a constant need to prove his loyalty to the team, the state, the region. However it started, whatever caused it...it was genuine and he was the greatest that there will ever be. Period. A Legend among Legends in a league full of them.
All my people are from Georgia (some of 'em are even Bulldogs. Right SKIPPY?). We were back there in September of 08 to bury my Grandmaw. As usually happens whenever there's 3 or more family members gathered...me and Daddy ended up in the car together. As we left Alma headed out 32 to my grandparent's place we listened to Georgia play some nobody. It didn't matter. I was listening to Larry Munson. He didn't care that they were playing a nobody either...every play was life or death for him. It was comforting.
Course he wasn't always a comfort. This one isn't a distant memory to me. Whenever it plays I'm seven years old...it's a recurring heartbreak but, it is, without doubt, the greatest call ever.
It's been posted but...
Rest in Peace Larry.
This is a tribute that the papers should carry e.f.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the man from Adam - but I could shed a tear now.
Your family is sounding more and more familiar by the post...
Thanks Muj.
ReplyDeleteHe was something else...and deserves his place in the long line of outstanding lunatics the SEC has produced.
He's also not alone in being a yankee that has made a place for himself in the league. There's a certain kinda oddball, from where ever, that seems to fit right in...we got one now that eats grass. His Alma Mater, Michigan, has tried to hire him twice..and twice he's told them no.
I see you pick up on a family detail there...:)
Yeah there's plenty oddballs and lunatic eejits here. Usually managing football teams or commentating!
ReplyDeleteThough the big money involved has done something bad to the game - it changes the nature of the people involved I think. All the corporate stuff. Takes an oddball to resist the siren lure of Mammon...
Which is why my family had a proud tradition of supporting the tiny town underdog (aka "losers") - the team which flirts with bankruptcy. The one whose supporters have mastered the skill of self-deprecation...
Until the internet, I thought we were the only people that said idjit.
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of talk about Non-League football on blogs...people fed up. I know the Glazers at Manchester United haven't helped. They own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers too and there's not a more soulless and plastic organization on the planet than the National Football League.
Thankfully we have college football...but there is this, nobody in the SEC wants to be the underdog. It is a league of constant striving...and the result has been total domination of the sport as a whole.
That'll be your Scots' lunatic inheritance showing there then, e.f....
ReplyDeleteThough we Scots do a fine line in "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory"...
We are well practiced in that art...:cough:1863:cough:.
ReplyDeleteWe got more than our share of it.
You should have seen our little Anglican church go all tartan this weekend for the blessing of the clans and St. Adrew...our C of E Kirk. At least the irony of it was commented on during the sermon.
Just more lunacy.
hahahahaha! tartan and ENGlISH!!!! now that is lunacy!!
ReplyDeleteSure made me just laugh out loud.
Half the Church was up there...some carrying two or three patterns. Martha was born a Cathcart...her and the boy were up there. It's a nice one...blue, red and green.
ReplyDeleteMy Moma's family is Scottish...but prison stripes seem to be the only pattern associated with the name.
Cathcart - a Glasgow "village". Our train goes through Cathcart.
ReplyDeletePrison stripes! lol.
Having haggis, neeps n tatties for dinner tonight. But the only tartan I have ever worn is the fireside variety - the one that mottles bare legs when they are too near the heat!
Am also "allergic" to bagpipes...
She's gotta fancy name.
ReplyDeleteYou would've been in hives Sunday.
I got a few pictures...I'll post 'em at some point. A couple of folks went all out.
I wore red...and quietly took names.
;)