This terrific piece on Verne Lundquist is worth a look, if only to watch the clip entitled “The art of Verne Lundquist’s laugh”.
And before some of you dump on Uncle Verne for losing a step, the man knows the end draws near as well as you do.
“I can tell the memory is not as good as it once was,” Lundquist said. “I don’t want to limp out. I don’t want the last words to be, ‘Well, shoot, he should have quit last year.’
“Craig [Silver] and I talk every week. We discuss the quality of the broadcasts. He will let me know. Sean will let me know. I’ll know before anybody.”
So chill. Just like so many other broadcasters who were icons to my generation, Lundquist will be missed by me when he’s gone.
Get The Picture 
Sure if you compare his current broadcasts to those of a few years ago there is some decline. If you compare his quality today to other broadcasters of today he will be on forever, which is fine with me.
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Hey even Larry declined some in his last years. He was still wonderful and so is Uncle Verne.
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I’ve always thought him to be a class act. IMO, he’s also a better broadcaster than 95% of those in the field today (and better than everyone at SEC network except maybe Stinchcomb). He’s not Keith Jackson, but I’ll miss him nearly as much.
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Still at the top of the heap when it comes announcers- IMO. ESPN needs to hire him to train their broadcasters.
I for one will miss Uncle Verne when he’s gone. He’s a classy guy who’s done a fantastic job for the SEC and CBS. The only one out there that I would want to fill his spot is Nessler. Everyone is else are terrible carnival barkers (maybe not Gus Johnson, but he’s a Bball guy in my book).
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+1 re: Nessler. I really like Nessler and Blackledge together. I think they’re the best right now.
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Yeah. Me, too.
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Ditto.
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+1 really like Nessler
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What about Craig Bollerjack!!! Not really, I still like ole Verne.
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I agree whole-heartedly with your sentiments, we will miss him and recall his great call for many years. Yes, he has slipped and I think the time is here. It is sad to see Danielson covering for him, if he means what he says in that quote he will decide to leave at the end of this year, imo. The pasture ain’t all that bad, old friend.
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He has provided many great memories over the years..
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I wish that in this day and age of thousands of cable channels that we could get an option of just having ambient sound without these guy’s bullshit. I am convinced that you have to be mentally retarded to get a job covering football games. There is no other explanation for what creeps out of these guy’s mouths. The majority of the most painfully dumb things I have ever heard in my life have been uttered by people calling football games on TV. Crowd noise and the stadium announcer would be just perfect. Now that, not a 60″ TV screen, might keep me at home rather than at the stadium. Hell, I’d easily pay UGA $40 a game for the option.
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Best NFL broadcast ever: http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap2000000114030/This-Day-in-Football-The-announcerless-game
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I remembered that. For the same reason that Police Squad failed on TV, it didn’t take. Now that we’ve progressed beyond the 7 channels we had in 1980, I’d like to see it make a come back, as an option.
(For those of you who don’t know Police Squad was a TV show produced by the guys who did Airplane!. It was hilarious. However, it had no laugh track so stupid people didn’t know when they were supposed to laugh so it didn’t last. Dumb people are the reason why we can’t have nice things.)
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This^^. Now that the score is on the screen constantly why not just have cameras show the game and pipe in the stadium PA system and crowd noise? It would be more like attending the game. The announcers, WWL particularly, say stupid things during games that detract from the game experience. Plus, they are wrong a lot. I often watch games with the sound off.
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While I won’t go as far as Derek insofar as deleting announcers all together, I can certainly sympathize with the lost art of not talking and letting viewers experience the moment without someone telling them what to think or describing what they are seeing.
The problem is that announcers either add value to a broadcast or they reduce value. There is no neutral setting here. Adding value is VERY hard and takes talented and dedicated people to pull it off. On top of this, TV execs don’t have the wherewithal, ability or work ethic to recognize a bad crew and replace them with a crew that does it well.
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Yes I’m 36 and that’s what I want to do is watch TV and listen to ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the whole time. Nope. What we always did around here was turn the TV sound down and turn up the radio.
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And once we find the technology to pause the DVR and the radio at the same time…sign me up. The best guys are on the radio. Period.
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Don’t listen to live radio…get the free streaming broadcast from Georgiadogs.com so that the feed is delayed more than TV. Then you DVR the game and synch on the opening kick-off to the radio broadcast. Prevents switching channels to see other action easily (since synching is a pain) but I’ve not had to suffer through Andre Ware either.
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I like the radio a little behind the broadcast.
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This season I’ve been synching the TuneIn radio broadcast to the TV, works pretty well. Also on some games the GA feed is available on XM radio & that works OK sometimes.
I like the broadcasters who’ll tell you what’s going on, outside what you can see on TV…you can’t always tell who throws the blocks downfield, or see how deep the safeties are playing on defense, etc
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Gary Danielson is the one I detest, Verne is OK in my book
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+1000
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They were both giddy during the JAX debacle this year, but Verne to a lesser extent.
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Yeah, but they actually danced to “Souljah Boy” during the first Blackout, so I’ll call it even.
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Verne comes across as an announcer who is a “homer” for the SEC.. He does a very good job for the SEC.
Unlike a certain analyst on SEC Network. He should go call games for Tech and Paul Johnson. Never heard an announcer so much into Paul Johnson, his mentor.
Going to Dome to watch Tide and Tigers. Both of those teams got better as the season went on unlike CMR’s team. If you are going to beat Bama this is the year. They will be very tough in 2015.
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Both of those teams got better as the season went on unlike CMR’s team.
Root for them if you’d like. We will miss you.
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Yes, Alabama’s defense got soooo much better, especially at the end of the year. I mean the way they struggled in mid season against Arkansas and then A&M, and then righted the ship to get hot at the right time against Auburn.
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Was this post intended to be sarcasm? Bama gave up 44 points to Auburn and 500+ yards total offense. Marshall threw for 456 yards and Marshall isn’t exactly Johnny Unitas.
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Of course it was, as it was in response to trane’s wrong assumption that Alabama got better during the season and we didn’t.
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There will never be another Unitas. He was the best.
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I know it’s fashionable to criticize Uncle Verne in some circles, and he has lost a bit over the last few years. But that’s fine with me. I’d still rather hear him than anyone else calling football games today. I will miss him when he’s gone. A lot.
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Thanks for the link, Senator. A great read. I don’t mind that Verne’s eyes and/or memory sometimes deceive him … that is bound to happen to us all with age.
I rank Verne along side of my other favorites Keith Jackson, Jim McKay, Jack Buck, Dick Schaap and Bob Costas. Local favs would be Larry Munson, Skip Caray and Pete van Wieren. Similar to what the article stated, I grew up watching/listening to them, and they always seemed to make me feel comfortable.
Great announcers will continue to come and go, but like Verne and the others that I grew up with and respect, they are impossible to replace. I hope Uncle Verne hangs around a while longer.
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Uncle Verne could get Alzheimers and a lobotomy and still be 100 times better than Andre Ware.
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AMEN. And Ware never improves. It should be impossible, but there it is.
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It really is hard to believe how consistently terrible he is.
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+1
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That’s pure gold right there, muckbeast. Dave Neal and Andre Ware make my ears bleed.
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I don’t mind Dave Neal but Ware is as bad as it gets. Plus, he’s wrong a lot, just plain wrong. He says stuff describing what happened that is factually inaccurate. I just saw it and that ain’t what I saw. Plus, man does he have his favorites and Georgia isn’t one of them. He never passes on the chance to diss the Dawgs.
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Neal and his constant sucking up to the powers-that-be in Birmingham drive me nuts. Not in the league of Andre Ware, but he is difficult to listen to. Some of the comments he has made about the quality of SEC officiating have also just rubbed me the wrong way.
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Thanks.
I really hope Year 2 of the SEC Network they’ll be able to get some better people.
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And who is going to make that decision? ESPN execs? Remember Mark May and Lou Holtz have been on the air for years now…
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The true halcyon days were when Verne and Blackledge were paired together. Nessler also is great and, btw, is a huge dawg fan.
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This. Couldn’t agree more.
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Blackledge is the most knowlegeable, classiest and unbiased one of them all.
I once had an Alabama fan complain to me that Munson was biased for the Dawgs. I had to explain to him that we were listening to the Georgia Football Network and it was expected.
Now Alabama has Pawwwwl.
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Hell, Alabama has Eli Gold, who is more partial to Alabama than Larry ever was for Georgia.
Blackledge is the best color guy out there right now. He’s unbiased and gives real analysis unlike his peer with the WWL who is nothing but a pretty face and an empty suit. He and Brad Nessler are unbelievably good together. Nessler runs circles around Fowler as a play-by-play guy. Their work on the Clemson game this year was just great.
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Except FBomb has never had any affiliation with Alabama, except as a conduit for the lower end of their fan base. Munson was paid by UGA, an employee, that is a big difference. But Paul doesn’t bother me, I can avoid him on the SEC network much easier than I could when he was on SiriusXM.
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This one from last year was quite amusing:
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I think Verne is incredibly cheesy. However, I find it endearing because he lacks the pretension of the others like Musburger and Joe Buck who think they are there to add to the experience. Verne knows when to get out of the way.
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Cheers for this sentiment. Verne was behind me in the airport security line coming back from the 2008 Jacksonville debacle. Not only was he friendly and amenable to standing for a photo with me, he introduced his wife, made friendly small talk and was a genuinely class guy. I’m the Senator here. Verne will be missed.
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I liked Vern together with Blackledge the best. Danielson isn’t bad, but was clearly rooting for Florida in JAX this year. Speaking of announcers, I have given up on Scott Howard. He gets excited too easily and yells often. I don’t expect him to be Munson, but good grief.
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I’m a younger generation Dawg (circa 1977), and I love me some Verne. His voice, to me, is synonymous with many years of significant football Saturdays. As an Augusta native, his voice also takes me to early April at the National.
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I hate watching games on CBS just because of him and Gary! I can’t wait for them to retire!
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He and Danielson will never be able to get the DNA from Tiny Tears and Corch Irvin Meyers off their faces. As for me and my household, he won’t be missed. I still can’t forgive Blackledge for a horrible night in New Orleans many moons ago. Andre Ware is beyond bad. Scott Howard ain’t purty to listen to. What is a Dawg fan to do?
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In your case, lower your standards. 😉
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What can I say? Spoiled by Munson and Keith Jackson, I am just an elitist. Even the old coach Al Ciraldo was better than any of the current crop. I am in the no commentator camp.
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