Verne Lundquist.png

Verne Lundquist has called SEC football games since 2000. He started his versatile broadcasting career in 1963.

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Verne Lundquist didn't grow up aspiring to be a sportscaster, much less one for 50 years. The son of a Lutheran minister, Lundquist attended a year of seminary while working as a night-time disc jockey.

"I have six hours of Greek that hasn't been particularly beneficial," Lundquist said.

Instead, Lundquist paved one of the more accomplished and versatile broadcasting careers in recent memory. Who else in a career has called figure skating, golf, boxing, basketball, football, track and field, swimming and diving, volleyball, gymnastics, soccer, weightlifting, skiing, archery and horse racing?

Lundquist, 73, knows he's in the twilight of his career while working his 14th season on SEC on CBS games, including Alabama-LSU this Saturday.

He had one knee replacement surgery last year and another this year. The swelling remains a reminder of how recent the operations occurred. If his knees, mind and voice hold up, Lundquist said he hopes to re-up after his CBS contract expires in 2014.

"I'll know (when it's time to retire)," Lundquist said in a recent interview, noting that Craig Silver, CBS' longtime coordinating producer for college football, will know as well. "I don't want to stay too long. We all know guys who did. I don't want that happening. I don't want the mistakes multiplying. I'm conscious, we all are. If I misidentify a guy, I feel really bad about it. You don't get to come back the next day to correct it."

In an evolving sports broadcasting industry, Lundquist uses a conversational, storyteller style that's from a different era. Still, he stayed relevant to a younger generation by appearing in the movie "Happy Gilmore" and people quote him his famous line -- "Who the hell is Happy Gilmore?" -- at least once a week.

Lundquist fashions himself after his role model, Jim McKay. Lundquist loved how he felt that the 90 minutes spent with McKay each week was time well spent. He often gives journalism students three tips that his first CBS executive producer provided 30 years ago.

1. Don't ever mention your name on television.

2. Never talk over a golf shot.

3. Don't state the obvious.

Lundquist may be best known as the golf announcer who said, "Yes sir!" when Jack Nicklaus sank a putt at the 1986 Masters. That call remains Lundquist's favorite from his career because of the symmetry of his words as Nicklaus raised his arms.

Others may know Lundquist as the former Olympic figure-skating announcers who called the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan duel. "It became a contact sport like the SEC," Lundquist quipped.

He's also the basketball announcer who called Christian Laettner's famous game-winning shot for Duke in 1992 with a simple "Yes!" "I channeled my inner Marv Albert," Lundquist said. "It was OK. I was more proud of the layout (staying quiet) after."

And he's the former Dallas Cowboys radio broadcaster who famously said after Jackie Smith dropped a touchdown in Super Bowl XIII, "Bless his heart, he's got to be the sickest man in America!"

Today, Lundquist is affectionately viewed by some SEC viewers as a familiar uncle and bemoaned by others for mistakes he makes. He is associated with the SEC in a way that eluded him as an NFL broadcaster.

When you turn on an SEC game each Saturday on CBS, you know you're listening to Verne Lundquist.

"I never dreamed that this SEC assignment would explode the way it has," he said.

Dealing with mistakes

In the 1990s, Lundquist was the near the top of the broadcasting food chain. He couldn't go much higher than being on CBS' No. 2 NFL broadcast team.

"That's a very nice life," Lundquist said. "You get big games, you stay in really nice places, and it's nonstop airlines."

Two years after the NFL returned to CBS, Lundquist was taken off pro football in 2000 and assigned to college football. "In all candor, it was difficult," he said.

Verne Lundquist in the 1990s

CBS had hired Dick Enberg, a sportscasting legend at NBC. Pat Haden, who called Notre Dame games with Enberg, gave Lundquist a heads up that Enberg hates college football.

"I said, 'That won't affect me because he's not going to come over as the No. 2 (NFL) guy. Dick Enberg is Dick Enberg,'" Lundquist said. "Well, unbeknownst to me, he was willing to come as the No. 2 guy."

At the time, Sean McDonough was leaving SEC on CBS games for ESPN. Todd Blackledge remained as the analyst until he left for ESPN after 2005 and was replaced by Gary Danielson.

Lundquist's first SEC game was a thriller. Jesse Palmer threw a 3-yard touchdown to Jabar Gaffney with 14 seconds left as Florida beat Tennessee 27-23 before 108,768 fans at Neyland Stadium.

Said Lundquist: "I looked at Todd after the post-game stuff, did a deep sigh and I said, 'Are they all like this?' And he said, 'Most of them.' It took me a year, probably, to get used to the idea of the challenge of doing college football again. I had done it 10 years earlier.

"I'll tell anyone this: It's much more of a challenge than doing the NFL, just the challenge of the rosters alone and the changing nature of those rosters. You better do your homework."

Lundquist acknowledged he has made mistakes, particularly with names.

"That's a three-and-a-half-hour high-wire act and there's no net," he said. "So occasionally you'll stumble and make a mistake. We've all done it. I've probably done it more often than most."

There's even a Verne Lundquist Drinking Game in which viewers can take a drink depending on when he laughs or makes mistakes on a broadcast. "I'm proud of the fact that mine's not as active as (Brent) Musburger's," he said.

Lundquist doesn't believe players and coaches when they say they don't read criticism. He thinks the same is true of announcers.

"I'd be lying if I said we're not conscious of it," he said. "We are. All of us are. But I will read it only to a point."

Lundquist said he enjoys the website Every Day Should Be Saturday and described its author, Spencer Hall, as "very, very, very clever." On the other hand, Lundquist said he is proud that he has not read the website Awful Announcing for two years.

"I won't look at it because of the adolescence of the guys who write it," Lundquist said.

Lundquist said he has tried to get CBS to shut down fake Twitter and Facebook account with his name. He said he doesn't mind criticism from people with different perspectives; it's the anonymity and juvenile comments that trouble him.

"There's a great solace to these clowns who cover themselves in anonymity, and it's easy to be dismissive of anyone on the air or in print," Lundquist said.

Happy Gilmore: 'The gift that keeps on giving'

A funny thing happened to Lundquist late in his career: He became relevant to younger viewers.

Lundquist and Bill Raftery, who is 70, have called NCAA men's basketball tournament games together since 2000 and are one of the more popular broadcast teams. Raftery recently left ESPN for Fox Sports 1 and will still call the NCAA Tournament on CBS.

Verne Lundquist had a cameo role in the 1996 movie "Happy Gilmore." At least once a week people ask him to give his famous line, "Who the hell is Happy Gilmore?"

College athletes ask Lundquist if he's really the golf announcer in Adam Sandler's "Happy Gilmore" movie from 1996. A couple years ago, then-Ohio State guard Aaron Craft didn't believe Lundquist was the man in the movie and made him say his famous line.

"The gift that keeps on giving," Lundquist said. "It's one of the most fortunate things I've ever done in my life in this context: The kids all watch it. It's given me a two-generational leap back because these kids who are playing in college now could be my grandkids and they watch that movie."

Lundquist expressed very few regrets about his career. He wishes CBS was involved in more bowl games (the network only airs the Sun Bowl) so he won't call a national championship game. He would have liked to have broadcast a Super Bowl on TV -- "But we all do," he said -- and did call five on radio.

"That's not a gaping hole in my resume at all," Lundquist said. "I got to do Georgia-Alabama in the SEC Championship Game last year. That's enough for me."

To make travel easier, Lundquist and his life have lived in a CBS-owned apartment in Atlanta during the past four football seasons. Lundquist used to hate the inconvenience of needing three flights to go from his permanent Colorado home to an SEC game.

"My association with the SEC has been the greatest thing to happen to my life professionally," Lundquist said. "My wife travels with me to all the games. It strengthens our marriage."

Lundquist's career began at a Texas TV station in 1963 owned by President Lyndon Johnson. He can't believe 50 years have passed.

"It's extraordinary, I think, that I've lasted so long in a precarious business."