Munson: "Massaquoi!"

I was playing around with my blog this morning and thought I'd try inserting a video for the first time--not nearly as difficult as anticipated. I like going to YouTube and viewing Georgia football-related video clips. My two-year-old son enjoys these videos also, often pointing to a blank, computer screen, requesting, "Bull-gods?!? Bull-gods?!?" We especially appreciate the ones with Larry Munson's calls in the background.

Like many of you, I grew up listening to Munson and still have a hard time believing that we'll never hear his gravely voice call another game. My first distinct memory of the legend was him begging our '82 defense to "hunker it down one more time" at Auburn. Moments later the defense "broke it up," and my family and I jumped around our house in delight as sugar apparently fell from the sky at Jordan-Hare Stadium. I think Scott Howard does an admirable job as Munson's replacement but as Ray Goff once said, "Boy, it's tough to follow a legend..."

I thought I'd post video of perhaps the last great call by Munson--Massaquoi's winning-touchdown catch and two-point reception against Georgia Tech in 2006. Two months after this call, I would speak to Mr. Munson for the first time when I asked him to write the foreword to my first book, Then Vince Said to Herschel... Without any hesitation, he graciously accepted. A couple of weeks later, his foreword arrived in the mail, looking like it had been typed on a typewriter. A note was attached declaring, "Pat, Clean It Up!" However, there was hardly any corrections or editing needed on my part; Munson's foreword was written as eloquently as his voice sounded on the radio. His foreword (January 2007):

To the REAL fans:

It always amazes me when somebody decides to go digging through the long-ago history of some team. They always come up with things I’d never envision. This book is going to reach you the same way it did me. All sorts of things that happened many years ago to let us all know that Georgia fans have always been the same: extremely passionate and out of their minds when it comes to beating the main part of their schedule each year.

As I write this the United States of America had just wrapped up the greatest bowl season in the history of American football. Never have so many favored teams gotten so far behind so quick game after game, and yet they managed to come back in the second half and win. And if you really do remember some of the offenses that the Dawgs were running back in the ’20s and ’30s then you must have been in a state of shock when you saw all those bowl games we just watched. There were things in those bowl games that smacked of long-ago days in football; funny looking formations and people trying to hide the ball. All those great bowl games we had this winter had to bring smiles to all the old-timers. This is the case even for those guys who have been in the ground now for close to 70 years! How can we possibly match what just happened?

Was Georgia’s rally against Virginia Tech one of the greatest games in the school’s history? Was the Oklahoma-Boise State bowl game just like something that we all played out in the streets many years ago when were so young and green?

Settle back and read these words now and see if some of it sticks to your memory block. Some of these games go way, way back and some of the plays described are just like those goofy plays we saw this past winter in the bowl games. Despite all of television’s efforts, the games actually are better than they’ve always been. And beyond a shadow of a doubt the girls are much better looking!!!

Sincerely yours,

Larry Munson
(a very old football announcer)