{"id":1445,"date":"2017-02-01T10:04:06","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T06:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2017-02-01T10:05:38","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T06:05:38","slug":"for-some-things-even-god-wants-just-five-more-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=1445","title":{"rendered":"For some things, even God wants just five more minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"brent-musburger-6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

April 2, 1990: the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels defeated the Blue Devils of Duke 103-73 in the most lopsided championship game in NCAA Tournament history.<\/p>\n

That was the first title game I watched with both anticipation and interest. I taped it that night, and in the years that followed I saw it probably 300 times. I had every word of play-by-play memorized.<\/p>\n

It happened to be the final game at CBS for legendary broadcaster Brent Musburger, though the name and voice meant nothing to me at the time.<\/p>\n

Last night I watched Kentucky beat Georgia in overtime on ESPN, with a 77-year-old Musburger on the call. Twenty-seven years after that “final” broadcast he was giving his\u00a0real<\/em> final broadcast, and this time the name and voice sounded to me like broadcasting manna.<\/p>\n

In an era of who can be the loudest on air or in 140 characters, the voice and style of Brent Musburger is a refreshing oasis. Classy to the end, Musburger’s final sign-off last night hit all the right notes. “The Frank Sinatra of broadcasting,” he was called by his EPSN colleagues. That’s not a term I through around lightly, but yeah, that’s pretty much how it is.<\/p>\n

I think the best summary of Musburger’s work I heard last night went something like this: You know it’s a big game when Brent Musburger’s on the call<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yup, that’s it. And last night’s game between Kentucky and Georgia\u2014one-sided on paper\u00a0though it was\u2014did\u00a0not disappoint. It’s going into overtime was just God’s way of saying He wanted five more minutes of Brent Musburger.<\/p>\n

Just five more minutes, please.<\/p>\n

I think that was my excuse to watch that game back in ’90 too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 2, 1990: the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels defeated the Blue Devils of Duke 103-73 in the most lopsided championship game in NCAA Tournament history. That was the first title game I watched with both anticipation and interest. I taped it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1449,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions\/1449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}