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AJC > Sports > UGA > Blog > Archives > 2007 > June
June 2007
It’s not easy replacing a legend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We all knew the day would come when Larry Munson would step down as the voice of Georgia football, but many Bulldog fans hoped (and still hope) that time wouldn’t arrive for quite a while.
But even if Munson’s health improves enough for him to do part or all of the 2007 season, UGA has to come up with a replacement sometime soon. I’ve been mulling over possible candidates for the past couple of seasons without settling on a favorite.
Some fans think the announcer needs to be someone with UGA ties, and that certainly would help ease the transition a bit. But I’m not sure that’s really a requirement. After all, when Munson was hired, he had no UGA connections; he was a longtime Vanderbilt announcer who was coming off a season on the Atlanta Braves’ broadcast team. I remember a lot of fans griped he was “no Ed Thilenius,” Munson’s popular predecessor. It took us a couple of seasons to warm up to Larry, but once he started identifying with Georgia as “we,” the fans came around. Yeah, he’s a “homer,” but that’s not why people quote and buy recordings of his best calls; it’s the color, the quirks, hunkering down, thinking of Montreal, hobnail boots and the whole shebang.
A lot of fans think color man Scott Howard, who also handles UGA basketball play-by-play, deserves a shot. And Howard probably is the best option on at least an interim basis. He certainly is a Bulldog and does a pretty good job on the basketball broadcasts, but I’m not sure he ever could approach Munson in conveying the excitement of a game.
Actually, there probably aren’t many announcers not of Munson’s generation who could.
The main thing I’d like to see UGA do is hire someone who is an announcer, first and foremost. If he has Georgia ties, great. But don’t give him the job just ‘cause he’s a former Dawg. That didn’t work with head coach and I don’t think it would work in the broadcast booth. Buck Belue might make a good replacement for Loran Smith on the sidelines, but he just doesn’t have the radio chops for the top job.
There are UGA-connected announcers who do, like Chip Caray and Ernie Johnson Jr., but they have great jobs already that would conflict with football season. But, hey, it might be worth a try for one of them.
Brad Nessler doesn’t have UGA ties, though he lives here, but he’d be unlikely to consider jumping from ABC/ESPN. Longtime sportscaster Bob Neal, who used to do some Bulldog games on TV back when TBS carried the SEC, seems a bit too laid back. And while he’s 20 years younger than Munson, Georgia probably doesn’t want another senior citizen. Neal’s son Dave does play-by-play for the Lincoln Financial Sports coverage of noontime SEC games, but I frankly haven’t been impressed with his work.
Local sportscasters Bill Hartman and Chuck Dowdle have very strong UGA ties, but neither has much play-by-play experience. I know Jeff Hullinger, who returned to town to work for WSB Radio (which anchors the Georgia football network), has done plenty of play-by-play, but I don’t think he’d be a good match with UGA. I remember talking to him back when he was with WAGA in the ’80s and I was covering TV, and he had a rather condescending view of Georgia football fans. We don’t need someone sneering at us while he calls our games.
So, basically, I think UGA ought to go with Howard for the short-term, and try to land a first-rate, experienced play-by-play man in the long run. If they must use Buck, keep him on the field. If they want a former Dawg in the booth as a color analyst, I’d try Kevin Butler. I like his outspoken approach on WNGC’s “Fifth Quarter Show.” And down the road, when he’s through with the NFL, David Pollack and his natural gift of gab would be a nice addition to the broadcasts.
Let’s just hope we haven’t heard the last of Munson, though.
Oh, Hot Diggity Dog!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Maybe it’s the combination of lifelong Georgia Bulldogs fan and career newspaperman in me, but some of my favorite memories involving UGA football victories involve newspaper headlines.
Long before I ever wrote headlines for a living, I had some Bulldog-related banner heads emblazoned in my memory. Or even emblazoned on a set of glasses, as in the 1980 National Championship commemorative glasses featuring the front pages of The Atlanta Constitution and The Atlanta Journal (R.I.P.) from Jan. 2, 1981. The Constitution’s banner headline: “Dawgs ARE No. 1.” Also on that front page was a column by nationally known humorist and Bulldog partisan Lewis Grizzard with the headline, “For Fans, ‘This One Is Forever’.” (Grizzard, you might recall, certified his UGA immortality by coming up with the phrase, “Let the big Dawg eat!”) Knowing my own partisan ways, someone in the composing room left the rolled up negative of that Constitution front page on my desk the next morning.
Even better, though, was the one stretched across the front page of the afternoon Journal’s “souvenir” edition: “Unbeaten, untied and unbelievable!”
As sweet as those National Championship headlines were, my favorites are the unabashed hometown cheering section headlines that used to grace the front of Sunday editions of the now defunct Athens Daily News back in the mid-’60s. “The People Paper,” as it dubbed itself, was started on a shoestring budget in 1965 (among those on the paper’s tiny sports staff was that same Lewis Grizzard, then a 19-year-old UGA journalism student) but soon captured Athenians’ devotion with its local emphasis and enthusiasm, and its colorful headlines. (Grizzard once told the story that the paper’s editor, Glenn Vaughn, prepared a mock front page in case the “Second Coming” took place in Athens, including a picture of Jesus and the headline: “HE’S BACK!”)
The Daily News was especially enthusiastic about the University of Georgia, even incorporating the school’s famous arch into its masthead. The paper used to devote its front page on game days to a giant red-and-black cartoon by local ad man Don Smith that featured a “Harry Dog” character (who looked a lot like today’s on-the-field Hairy Dawg) abusing the mascot of UGA’s intended victim.
But it was the Sunday headlines after a Georgia victory that gave the Athens Daily News a special place in Bulldog Country (as we used to refer to what’s now called the Bulldog Nation). After the big upset over the Wolverines, the Oct. 3, 1965, headline thundered: “Big Michigan Comes Down!” A week later, after the win over Clemson, it was: “Bulldogs Cook Tiger Stew.” And after Vince Dooley’s second straight win over the Yellow Jackets, the Daily News front on Nov. 28, 1965, declared: “Georgia Clobbers Tech; Dooley for President!!!”
(What a schedule that season! Our nonconference opponents: Michigan, FSU, Clemson and UNC in addition to Tech.)
The next season, the Oct. 30, 1966, Daily News front got alliterative after a victory over North Carolina with: “Kent, Kohn Klobber Karolina Klan, 28-3.” A week later, after a win over Florida in Jacksonville, the paper’s headline read: “Hallelujah! Greatest Bulldogs Skin Sixth-Ranked ‘Super’ Gators 27-10.” After the Bulldogs wrapped up the SEC championship with a victory over Auburn, Daily News readers were greeted on Nov. 13, 1966, with: “Great Bulldogs Reign in Tough SEC and the Whole Town Goes Wild.”
The all-time best was yet to come, though. After Georgia beat Tech yet again, 23-14, the Athens Daily News came up with probably the most memorable college football game headline ever. In 96-point type, the banner head written by veteran Daily News reporter Larry Young screamed: “Oh, Hot Diggity Dog, Mr. Dooley, You Have Wrecked Ole Tech Again!”
I recently asked Coach Dooley how he felt after seeing that on the front page of the Daily News. “It was a great headline,” Dooley said, “even greater today! [But] at the time I was somewhere between pleased and embarrassed!”
They don’t write ’em like that any more. But fans who were around Athens in those days can still recite that “Hot Diggity Dog” headline from memory verbatim. Which I guess puts it on a level with “Dewey Beats Truman” and “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
Unforgettable!
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