Damn Good Dawg

It is a day of truly mixed emotions for the Bulldog Nation.  

On the one hand, it’s the beginning of Clean Old Fashioned Hate Week, one of my favorite of the year. 
  
With Georgia’s win Saturday against Kentucky, we clenched as Eastern Division SEC Champions.  Our beloved head football coach, Mark Richt, began the season with many doubters, but has replaced all doubt with renewed energy and excitement for the program.
 
But even with all this, today marks a day of great sadness for all those who bleed red and black.  Our venerable announcer and famed college football broadcaster Larry Munson died yesterday.

He holds a place of incredibly high esteem in the hearts of all Georgia fans.  If you asked fans who in the history of the program best represented the UGA spirit, I suspect you’d hear Munson’s name more than any player or coach.  He was legendary long before he died, and even before he retired in 2008 at age 86.

Munson’s calls were the kind that transported you just by listening to them.  Though some of his most remembered calls were made before I was born, you can still feel the energy and passion just by listening to them.  Run, Lindsay Run.  My God a freshman.  Sugar falling out of the sky.

I was lucky enough to have met Larry Munson a handful of times while I worked for the UGA Athletic Association as a student worker in college.  I was luckier still to have been a freshman still soaking in Georgia tradition when Munson made his infamous Hobnail Boot call.  I remember what it was like to watch a Georgia game with the sound all the way down while listening to Munson, and for that, I’m grateful.

Though we knew this day was coming, I cried when I heard about his passing nonetheless. For a man larger than life, this news struck me as nothing less than personally devastating.

Larry Munson, damn good Dawg, you will be missed.

JLH