Courtesy Dallas Morning News

(January 25, 2010) In going back and forth with CBS' Verne Lundquist this week, I was reminded he has been in the catbird seat for some of the top moments in recent sports history. Lundquist, a former radio voice of the Cowboys who doubled as a Channel 8 anchor, remained with the Cowboys through the 1983 season, when he moved full time to CBS.

He was in the 17th tower on Sunday in 1986 when Jack Nicklaus took the lead on the way to winning his sixth green jacket. He called Duke 104, Kentucky 103 in the 1992 NCAA men's basketball tournament, a game some call the greatest in that sport's history.

Two years later, Lundquist was rinkside for the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding figure skating showdown at the Lillehammer Winter Games, the third highest-rated sporting event (126 million viewers on a Wednesday night) in U.S. television history.

His most famous Cowboys call came in Super Bowl XIII in Miami, when Pittsburgh beat the Cowboys, 35-31. It came after tight end Jackie Smith dropped what looked like a sure touchdown pass, forcing the Cowboys to settle for a field goal late in the third quarter.

"Bless his heart," Lundquist said. "He's got to be the sickest man in America."

Last weekend he was in Connecticut to call the Texas-UConn men's game for CBS. He'll be back in Dallas on Feb. 16 for a fundraiser he has organized for his alma mater Texas Lutheran University's nonscholarship Division III athletic program. The highlight of the evening should be a 45-minute "front row" question and answer session with Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman. More information and tickets are available at www.tlu.edu.

Will you ever escape your Bowling for Dollars days at Channel 8?

Last Tuesday night at a dinner hosted in Steamboat Springs (Colo.) by Billy Kidd, skiing champion, and Larry Mahan, rodeo champion, on the eve of the annual Cowboy Downhill, I'm introduced to a pleasant fellow who says he grew up in Dallas. "Nice to meet you." he says. "I was just telling Elmer, here, that I used to watch you on Bowling for Dollars on Channel 8 in the '70s." I don't make this stuff up.

What are your top 3 non-event highlights?

Giving the eulogy at Doak Walker's funeral. ... Doak was my childhood idol. It was the greatest honor I've ever been given. Presenting Terry Bradshaw at his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction in 1989. Narrating Igor Stravinsky's composition, "A Soldier's Tale," with a superb chamber music ensemble at our Strings Music Festival in our hometown of Steamboat Springs. ... Nancy and I have more close friends in the world of classical music than we do in sports. I should have been a conductor.

What's the key to your success and longevity in the broadcasting business?

It's probably a product of persistence. This can be a really nasty business. It's not all a wonderful pinot grigio and a fine camembert, served under a large umbrella on a beautiful beach. It's persistence and an ability to tell a story or two and a firmly held belief that nothing I say on the air need be chiseled in stone. It's OK to find a touch of humor in a situation, even if it involves laughing at yourself. I've also found that my statuesque physique and classic profile have been helpful. Or not.

You've worked with a who's who of analysts. Who is one that you never worked with but wish you had?

I would have loved to have worked with Don Meredith. I believe anyone who missed the 1970s has no idea of the enormous impact that the Monday Night Football broadcasts had on the culture of our country. Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell and Don Meredith were terrific together, but Don Meredith was the key. My current football partner, Gary Danielson, believes Don was the best television football analyst ever. I concur. A side note: My colleague on the sideline of our SEC football telecasts, the wonderful Tracy Wolfson, born in 1975, had no idea who Don Meredith was when his name came up at dinner recently.

We have yet to discuss your appearance as a broadcaster in a classic movie – Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore.

It's the gift that keeps on giving. The movie has been around for 14 years. It is played incessantly on cable television and still sells well on DVD. It's almost a cult film among high school- and college-aged men and women. It's a silly piece of nonsense that has enormous comic appeal and because I play myself in it, and because young people seem to enjoy it, it's given me a treasured link across two generations, between the twenty-somethings and the sixty-somethings. How about my epitaph? "Here lies Verne Lundquist. He hosted Bowling for Dollars and he played himself in Happy Gilmore."

blog comments powered by Disqus