July 20, 2009 · 7:54 PM

Say it ain’t so, Ron.

Color me depressed.

The classy style of Ron Franklin, ESPN’s voice for Big 12 basketball and a longtime college football announcer, will be missed by sports fans if he goes through with plans to retire when his network contract expires in April.

After 44 years in sportscasting and 22 years at ESPN, Franklin, said he’s “98.5 percent sure” he will retire after broadcasting the 2010 NIT championship.

First Munson, now Franklin.  Damn, that’s sad.  If the WWL has any class at all, it’ll let the man go out calling the Rose Bowl.  (The televised broadcast, that is.) Not that I’m holding my breath.

If you want to know what the sound of college football is like, here’s Franklin’s introduction to the ’05 Georgia-Auburn game:

Uncle Ron, you’ll be missed.  And if you ever decide you’d like to keep your hand in things by doing a little radio play-by-play, I’d be more than happy to help carry the water here with a little campaigning.

11 Comments

Filed under College Football, ESPN Is The Devil

11 responses to “Say it ain’t so, Ron.”

  1. Hobnail_Boot
    July 20, 2009 at 9:48 PM

    Geez, Greg Blue.

    Like

  2. mikeinvaldosta
    July 21, 2009 at 12:13 AM

    Glad to see someone else appreciates Franklin. I have no idea what he did to piss off the powers at ESPN, but he was great. He and Gottfried were far better than the recent offerings.

    Like

    • Senator Blutarsky
      July 21, 2009 at 6:05 AM

      Many people think it was the Holly Rowe incident that soured ESPN on Franklin. Per Wikipedia,

      On October 1, 2005, according to the Chicago Tribune, during a game between Notre Dame and Purdue that Franklin was calling, sideline reporter Holly Rowe praised Purdue defensive coordinator Brock Spack for using all three timeouts on defense despite trailing by four touchdowns late in the game. “If the coaches are giving up,” Rowe added, “what does that say to the players?” Franklin responded: “Holly, it’s not giving up. It’s 49-21, sweetheart.”

      In response to that, Mo Davenport, senior coordinating producer for college football said, “It was an inappropriate comment, and we’ve communicated that to Ron. There’s never a reason to say something so mean-spirited. Ron apologized. We dealt with it internally.”

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  3. lawvol
    July 21, 2009 at 12:29 AM

    Damn! That’s a crying shame. As I recently said, Ron has been about the best there is in the world of college football television broadcasts. The rest pretty much … well … suck.

    Like

  4. kckd
    July 21, 2009 at 12:44 AM

    I appreciate Franklin and sorry to see him go. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Senator has some weirdo shrine set up for the man in his basement or something.

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  5. GumpDawg
    July 21, 2009 at 12:55 AM

    Finebaum stated twice today, once on his own show and once on anothers, that his next column was about CMR being on the ‘hot’ seat…its so hard to maintain my singular hatred of all things florida when surrounded by arrogant bamers…I don’t like Urban at all, but these bamers really believe he’s the 2nd best SEC coach behind Satan…actual history be damned. I actually like bama…when they are average (see Shula era), but with a little mo, their freakin ridiculous!

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  6. RedCrake
    July 21, 2009 at 1:37 AM

    Well in that case, we can kiss Richt goodbye because as we all know Finebaum is more powerful than Damon Evans.

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