Forgive me if I sound desperate, but such is the voice of man far, far from home, lost and alone without a compass and without a way.
I knew this day would come. I think we all came to that realization separately over the past few years. However, the difference between knowing something will come and having that very thing knock at your door is like hearing of the Holocaust and having the Gestapo standing in your living room. It is a shock to the senses and a blow to the reality I have carefully constructed over my 31 years on this planet. To even type the words makes my heart ache with loss, but I must do it or you will wonder whether I’ve lost my mind.
Larry Munson has retired.
To non-UGA fans, this means very little. Maybe you’ve heard of him, maybe you’ve heard a call of his played on ESPN or YouTube, maybe you know nothing at all. But to the initiated, to those whose veins run both Red and Black, Larry Munson is the voice of The University of Georgia. Not just the football team, mind you; Larry is the signature sound when one thinks and dreams of Athens in the Fall.
To overstate his impact on UGA as an institution is impossible. He created, for thousands of fans and alumni everywhere, a verbal fresco of college football, of tailgates and war cries, of cigars and hotdogs, of heroes made and heroes broken, of enemies vanquished and hope restored. To hear him was to hear the University as one sees it in person. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the heartache, the triumph, Larry Munson brought into homes across the Southeast an open window into Sanford Stadium and college football at large.
And there is where the magic goes missing now. I have lived away from Athens nearly all my life. Minus my 5 years attending Georgia, I spent most of my Autumn Saturdays elsewhere. Unless I made the commute, which I often did, my only unfailing hope of following my Beloved Bulldogs was to turn the radio over to Larry, and let him conjure for me, wherever I was, a portal onto the Field, between those sacred hedges. For as long as he spoke and as long as I listened, Sanford Stadium was nearer to me than the 300 sections in the upper deck. I felt the game in way that only true presence can be felt. I knew the emotion; I could feel the worry in the crowd, the anticipation, the hope. No matter the hour or the place, Larry always found a way to bring me to the game.
And now, that great, gravelly voice has retired. That sweet, anxious storyteller has put down his microphone for the last time. Living farther away from Athens than I ever have, my gap remains ever wide, and my belief in the old magic is gone.
So you must forgive me if I sound desperate, for my compass is lost, and the road this Fall is as dangerous as I can remember. And while I know the paths that may lead me back to Athens, the distance seems much greater, and I no longer have the comfort of Munson’s voice, telling me when to drive faster, when to worry, and when to hunker down.
Thank you Larry Munson, for being the window and the wit of the Bulldogs for all these years. May God grant you many more, if only to hear the joy you brought us all.
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