To Bulldawgs, loss of Munson like a hobnail boot to the face

On Sept. 6, Lawrence Harry “Larry” Munson, unbeknownst to everybody, stepped away from his broadcasting booth, and from the high platform from which he preached his legacy into Bulldawg lore, for the last time.

It was not death that parted the longtime companions, man and microphone, it was simply the wear and tear of life. Munson turned 86 in September, so certainly we can forgive him despite even the occasional abandonment we may feel whenever we fiddle with our radios on Sanford Stadium Saturdays.

They say coping with a new situation takes time, every day delivering a slightly smaller shock than the one preceding. But when I do the math, since only about 12 days pass out of every year that we get to spend alongside our avuncular radio confederate rasping into our ear, it’ll be decades until we’ve fully recovered from this one.

For those who don’t know, Munson was the “Legendary Voice of the Dawgs” for exactly 42 seasons and, if my count is correct, 495 games of the venerated tradition that is University of Georgia football. He arrived just two seasons after College Football Hall of Fame coach Vince Dooley took the helm in 1964, was there after Dooley resigned in 1988, and outlasted a couple of other coaches who were mercifully replaced. Now a new unfortunate fool has the even more daunting task of following the guy from Minnesota, the South’s adoptive son. Living legends, after all, have a way of eclipsing both their contemporaries and their predecessors. They leave holes, you see. Unfillable ones.

Larry was one of those old school reporters who eschewed cold professionalism entirely. And God bless him for it. It was no secret whose side he was on — emphatically ours — and yet he always found the most colorful ways of expressing his dismay at our chances. His impressionistic prose worked on the mind’s eye in the same manner that Monet’s brushstrokes filled a canvas, vibrant and bold and dynamic were his peppery words. Verily, he was the author of our Saturdays. The more famous of his calls, in fact, have become part of the Bulldawg Nation’s litany. As Psalm 23 is to the Christian, “Run Lindsay!” is to the Bulldawg.

For me, his calls still evoke the tingle of dreams realized and gods created. I need only read the transcripts of his words to experience the shivery nervousness of great moments past. And so many of them took place long before my time, which just goes to show the gravity of his influence. It is a powerful gift this man honed over the 60 years of his radio service, whose finest hours preceded my birth and yet have dictated my experience of the sport. And he will be missed like a boy misses his blanket.

In spite of his unabashed favoritism, he never managed to offend. It was a sincere love that he sported for his team, one that merely aggrandized his beloved rather than belittled his opponent. Indeed, both sides of the ball embraced him for his enthusiasm and revered him for his uncanny ability to pull iconic statements from the abstract recesses of his mind:

“Look at the sugar falling out of the sky!” he exclaimed after the goal-line stand against Auburn that clinched Georgia’s SEC title in 1982. “Look at the sugar falling out of the sky!”

“We just stepped on their face with a hobnailed boot and broke their nose!” he intoned against Tennessee in 2001. “We just crushed their face!”

“Who do we sue if we have a stroke?” he asked when the chips were down against Georgia Tech in 2006.

You’ll notice most of the statements above conclude in exclamation marks. Larry had a way of exclaiming a great many things with that booming, staticky voice of his. It was, after all, the sincerity of his passion that fueled our own, and the irreverence of his loyalty that bade us to follow suit. Like my father has been able to do for years, I can now say I was at Carrie’s in Athens during the “hobnail boot” call and at a pub in Edinburgh for that dramatic season closer when Tech was giving us fits and Larry was practically on a stretcher. I now have my Larry moments by which to bookmark my love affair with this team.

What other brilliance had he locked up in that head of his, what flash of cleverness, what turn of phrase could have become dislodged during some unforeseen moment of athletic ecstasy, the world can only imagine. Perhaps, though, when the mood is right we might attempt to fill the silence ourselves with our best impression of his gravelly cadence and whistling consonants. We will fail, of course. But we will try, and take comfort in the process.

Former Bulldog coach Ray Goff said it right when he suggested, and I’m paraphrasing here, that if you were to ask the average fan who best represented the spirit of Georgia football, it would be neither player nor coach whom he’d name. It would be Munson. And true to his stature, Munson expects nothing from the university in exchange for his 42-year service; he desires no fanfare, no pre-game ovation or halftime ceremony. Legends, you see, true legends, need no recognition for their efforts. They are the rare breed who’d rather see other heroes decorated, who’d prefer fading quietly into the background to anybody making a fuss. But of course this is what makes their character all the more compelling in the first place — that they deserve the world but desire a handshake.

In any case, some of us will return to silence on Saturdays until our mourning is complete. Others will carry on with the new squad. But before you go, Larry, let us say collectively, and with as little fanfare as is possible, that we “got the picture” because of you. Thank you, good sir, for painting it so vividly for us, with such care for so long.

• Matt Stevens, UGA class of 2003, lives in Athens.