Verne Lundquist shares favorite memories calling The Masters, SEC football, March Madness in new must-read book Play by Play

Verne Lundquist travels down memory lane for his new book Play by Play as he recalls being on the call for some of the biggest moments in sports from the SEC to college basketball to The Masters.

A lot of people say you should never meet your heroes, but I had the chance to sit down and talk with one of my broadcasting heroes and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. I had the opportunity to talk with Verne Lundquist to talk about his new book Play by Play: Calling the Wildest Games in Sports-From SEC Football to College Basketball, The Masters and More as we took a trip down memory lane reliving some of the most classic moments in sports history.

From Jack Nicklaus’ one-stroke victory at the 1986 Masters that served as the genesis of his “Yes, Sir!” call to Tiger Woods’ chip on 16 at the 2005 Masters where the ball lingered on the lip of the cup before dropping, Lundquist has witnessed two of the most memorable golf shots from the two greatest golfers of all time.

That wouldn’t be a bad career if those were the highlights, but Lundquist also had the call where Grant Hill threw a near-full-court pass to Christian Laettner who sank the game-winning bucket to send Duke to the Final Four in 1992 and send Kentucky home. Most recently, Lundquist served as the voice of the SEC on CBS for years and in the span of three weeks saw The Prayer in Jordan-Hare and The Kick-Six that Auburn football fans will never forget.

All these moments and countless more helped serve as the sound of sports for my generation. Much like Harry Caray, Vin Scully, Mel Allen, Howard Cosell and Keith Jackson was the voice of past generations, watching a game with Verne on the call meant this was a marquee event and you just knew something special could be in the cards where we’d get another patented classic reaction from the Hall of Fame sportscaster.

In his book, Verne shares these stories and so much more as he shares the highlights of his career and the milestone moments that saw him leave ABC for CBS, doing radio vs. TV, and the relationships he’s made along the way.

In my conversation, I had to get his thoughts on the games that highlight his best of resume, his favorite place to call a game, advice for aspiring sportscasters and how he feels when people refer to him as “Uncle Verne.”

Schmidt: You’re on record saying Jack Nicklaus’ winning his sixth green jacket at the 1986 Masters is your favorite moment in broadcasting. Take us back to that final round and set the scene and the emotions when Jack sank the putt to seal the win. 

I’ve been very lucky, especially my years at CBS. I have also been fortunate that I have been to the mark for the most part with words that accompany the moment and enhance it. So as a result of that I am asked quite often, “Give us a ranking” and Jack has been my number one since that event happened in 1986. I’ve said before first of all he was given no chance by any of the writers and broadcasters because he was 46 and he had not won in two years.

There was a columnist named Tom McAllister who wrote a column printed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in which he ranked the chances of golfers for that week at Augusta and he put Jack in the lower quadrant. So the expectations were not high and he was four back of Seve Ballesteros at the beginning of the day and he birdied the ninth. He really had a nondescript first eight holes but he birdied the ninth and that ignited him and he went birdie, birdie, birdie then he bogeyed 13 and came right back and par’d 14 and then the drama really began. He eagled 15, birdied 16 and Seve playing behind him but his ball in the water on 15. So all of sudden Jack was tied with Seve so we knew what was at stake.

As he was standing over that draw foot putt, a very slight double break, I just said to myself “Okay keep it simple and get out of the way.”

Fortunately, I was able to do that. Jack has been very kind over the years in his reaction to that call, which gives me no small degree of pleasure to be linked with him. So, yes. I’ve heard it hundreds of times and it works in simplicity I think.

The natural transition from Jack is to Tiger where you were on the call for his famous chip on 16 at the 2005 Masters. If Jack at 86 is your top moment, where does Tiger fall?

If Jack is No 1, Tiger’s chip is 1a. It still remains one of the most remarkable shots I have ever seen at Augusta, and I have been there since ‘83. What I remember most about it is Lanny Wadkins was in the tower with Jim Nantz, and Chris DiMarco was a fellow competitor and he hit his tee shot 20 feet below the hole. Tiger faced an impossible challenge and Lenny Wadkins said: “He’s going to be lucky if he can stop this ball inside DiMarco’s ball.”

Well, I think any golf fan can tell you what happened. He hit this amazing chip shot and it must have traveled 90 feet onto the middle of the green and it stopped. It dribbled down toward the hole and then miraculously sat on the lip for 1.8 seconds and then dropped in. So my reaction is what I think people at home were thinking.

“In your whole life have you ever seen anything like that?!”

Well none of us have. Here again like Jack, Tiger over the years has reached out and acknowledged the linkage between the two of us and I promise you this if you’re going to be remembered for a golf call, having Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods attached to it is no bad thing.

One of my first memories of college basketball is your call in the Duke-Kentucky game in 1992 when Christian Laettner his the game-winning shot. I’d imagine that’s your favorite call in that sport, but if the refs don’t miss a call earlier, that moment doesn’t happen.

Oh gosh, yes. Maybe No. 2 along with 1 and 1a. Laettner was perfect in that game. 10 for 10 including the 18-footer to win it. 10 for 10 at the free throw line and he also had seven rebounds. Folks who remember the game might also remember he had one step on the stomach of Aminu Timberlake, for which he very rightly might have been ejected from the game but officials didn’t call it. I mean I’m glad they didn’t for the result of the encounter because it’s widely regarded as the best college game ever played. I did the game with Lenny Elmore and to have your name attached to that one even now that were 25 years out is pretty thrilling.

You’ve called a lot of buzzer beaters in college basketball and seen fantastic finishes in The Masters, but in the span of three weeks, you saw two, featuring Auburn. The Prayer in Jordan-Hare and the Kick-Six which might be the wildest finish in college football. 

Of course, Auburn beat Georgia on a 4th down and 18 with a Hail Mary pass to beat all Hail Mary’s. The two defenders from Georgia did not do what was required of them and tipped it and Ricardo Lewis ran it in for the touchdown. Gary Danielson and I were standing there, and Gary said, “That’s the greatest finish I have ever seen in college football. I promise you this, you will never ever see anything as thrilling.”

Well, that lasted three weeks. Then we were blessed with Auburn and Alabama in December of 2013. Most remarkably that game ended on a missed 57-yard field goal and Chris Davis went 109 yards. He got two great blocks on the left side of the field and once he hit the 50, I thought to myself in the middle of the run, “Unless he trips over his feet he’s going to score and this is going to be amazing.”

And he did score and I looked back, no flags. Gary and I laid out, meaning we didn’t say a word. And because I’ve seen that so many times I can tell you the length of the layout is one minute and 21 seconds and our director, Steve Milton, who also directs The Masters by the way, just was wonderful. During that 1:21 he made 21 separate camera cuts, that means different scenes. He started with a wide shot of the mob on the field and then a tight shot of Saban leaving, a tight shot of Gus Malzahn coming over and he just orchestrated those shots until finally, the producer Craig Silver said in my headset, “Well, maybe let’s start the replays.”

All I said was, “Maybe they’d like to see that again.” Gary took it from there. Gary through the course of the three replays we ran, made an observation that Nick Saban had his field goal protection team on the field and on the third replay, Gary made note of that and as Davis went in for the score, he said, “No wonder they couldn’t catch him. Those aren’t athletes out there, they’re Alabama fat guys.”

History is a great gift because years later we know where these moments fall in the pantheon of classic sports moments, but when you’re in the moment, do you allow yourself to think about things like that?

It’s not a moment I take and most people don’t I don’t think, to think, “Oh boy I got a chance to make a wonderful call here.” It’s all instinctive and extemporaneous. I had no idea when Tiger’s ball hung on the lip and dropped in what I was going to say. But I think I can explain it best by saying, I reacted to the shot in a way that fans sitting at home were reacting to the shot. I came up with a pretty appropriate line, “In your life have you ever seen anything like that?” None of us had!

I do remember when Jack stood over the putt at 17 in 1986. I was a big fan of him, I still am. 46 years of age with a chance to take the lead and as he walked up to the green, I remember thinking to myself, “Keep it simple and get out of the way.” I think with the brevity of the call, yessir we accomplished that. Just coincidentally I’ve seen it so many times. As Jack walked up to get the ball out of the cup and I was saying, “Maybe, yes sir!”

If you see the replay, Jack raised both of his arms in exaltation of what he had accomplished and it was almost as if he were conducting me in what I was saying. He was like a symphony conductor and giving a downbeat. He really in my view enhanced what people remember about that putt.

You’ve done radio and TV, you’ve called some of the biggest moments in a variety of sports. What advice would you give to young and aspiring sportscasters, or even those working in the industry now?

First of all be aware, as you seek a hire place in the hierarchy. Be aware that there are going to be curveballs and there will be setbacks. It’s happened in my life and you need to be resilient. You also have to have a belief in yourself and if you’re going to get an opportunity, you never know when it will happen.

Another piece of advice I was given early in my career from the late Frank Glieber, who died, he was a great friend of mine, and Frank died of a heart attack in 1985 at the age of 51. He had done the 17th hole for CBS from 1968-1985 so I took his place and he told me way back in the 70s, “Never turn anything down.” That’s been an operating philosophy in my life. “If they ask you to do horse jumping in Germany, watch all the tape of horse jumping you can and give it your best shot.”

And wouldn’t you know, in ‘85, I was given the chance to commentate the World Horse Jumping Championships in West Germany. Well, who knew the stadium could seat 60,000 people and was strictly for horse jumping. I was working with Robert Ridland. He was captain of the United States equestrian team that won a gold medal in Los Angeles in the ‘84 Olympics. I was concerned I didn’t know much about the sport at all and I said that to Robert before we started. He looked at me with a grin and he said, “If you can get the name of the horse and the name of the rider properly introduced, I can handle the rest of it.”

And he did. We did. So my bio at CBS lists 20 different sports I have done and that is all true, I count them all up but among that list and I hide this, at the national sports festival in Syracuse in ‘81, it was my last year at ABC. I got there and I was assigned three different tasks, do the interviews, track and field. “That’s easy,” I thought. “And we’re going to put you on archery and weightlifting.“ I would challenge anybody to do play-by-play in an archery contest. But I did it and I forgot about it. But in weightlifting, I did have a partner named Bruce Wilhelm. Those are totally irrelevant in the scope of things other than that they give me experience that I needed at that time.

One more thing I would say to young broadcasters, please learn the art of being quiet. Let the directors and producers and 70 or so technicians that are there at the site of whatever the event is, let them do their work. It’s my pet peeve, I don’t lay out as often as I should, but I’ve been known by a few folks who know this business very well for just being silent and let the moment go. I try never to talk an exciting moment whether it’s the Tiger chip or the Jack putt. Once I made the comment, I just shut up until it was appropriate to come back in.

Your career has given you the opportunity to see the biggest and best venues in sports, especially in the SEC when you were the voice of the SEC on CBS. Did you have a favorite venue?

I can say this now that I no longer do the SEC. I think my favorite experience of doing a college game occurred in Bryant-Denny Stadium. It is perfectly symmetrical, it holds 102,000 people but it seems intimate. I don’t know how that’s accomplished but we treasure, Nancy and I treasure, every time we do a game in Tuscaloosa. We love Georgia, I love the people of Georgia. I don’t have a least favorite. I certainly do not. Anywhere in the SEC provides its own special experience. Auburn fans are going to scream and I know that but we love going down to Auburn and being present at that facility, but on the whole, I would take Bryant-Denny.

Speaking of Alabama, you and Nick Saban go back a long way to when he was an assistant coach at Kent State in 1976. Do you have a favorite Saban story?

I don’t know if I got a favorite story about him, but one of the things I respect about him and we have become quite good friends over the years. If you look at the back jacket of the book, the lede is from Nick. He alludes to our friendship and what he thinks I contributed. I think people see him as insular and gets angry at players for this mistake, but I know the different side of him. I know that side as well but I’ve never been the recipient of it but it’s always present in the background. When we talk to him and we talked to him every time we did a game at Alabama. He sets aside a half hour from 11:00-11:30 and he comes in dressed to the nines because at 11:30 he’s going to be escorted to a lunch, “Nick at Noon”. It’s primarily aimed toward women and he gets 800-900 people in this thing and he’s ready to go.

Where I’ve been so fortunate, my two partners in college football were Todd Blackledge and Gary Danielson. Each of them remains a very close friend. Beginning with Todd and beginning when Nick was at LSU. We would come in, he would close that door and he was attentive to everything we asked. He had such respect for both Todd and Gary that I was sitting there and I can’t remember that I asked a question more than twice and I would sit there and listen closely. Because of his respect for those two guys, he would share thoughts. Now he’s never going to tell us what he intends to do on 2nd and 10 on the opposing 30-yard line, but he would give us his assessment of where the team was.

I don’t recall other than I know he knows that I tell this story, go back to Alabama-Auburn. The game is ruled over and he throws the red flag and I can tell because we put a clock on it. It took seven minutes for the officiating crew and the replay official to determine there was one second left. Matt Austin was the referee and he very famously said, “Please put one second back on the clock.” Gary and I thought he would go for the home run on the Hail Mary and instead, he sent the freshman kicker out for the 57-yarder and the guy kicked it very well but it was returned and the next day on the Auburn campus, there were t-shirts for sale. They jacked up the  price to something astronomical but on the front, it said, “Hey Nick, got a second?”

You’ve been on our TV’s for decades and in our living rooms as we watch all these games and events. You’re an extended part of many fans families, so when you hear you affectionately called “Uncle Verne” how does that make you feel?

I can tell you where it started. There is a fella named Spencer Hall and he has a website everydayshouldbesaturday and I read that regularly. Not as often now, as I’m not an associate with the SEC but Spencer is a terrific writer and I’ve met him two or three times. All of a sudden on a Monday rehash, he made reference to me as Uncle Verne and it caught on, so I hear that often when I was going to and from the elevator to get up to the press box. And it warms my heart quite frankly and I take it usually intended as a term of affection. So to have that moniker at the end of a very long career, I’ll take that to my grave with me. Tim (Tebow) acknowledged that in that blurb for which I was enormously appreciative.