Larry Munson

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Larry Munson (born September 28, 1922) is a famous sports announcer and talk-show host who has been based in Atlanta for over four decades. He has been the play-by-play voice of the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team throughout that time, and has also hosted sports-related talk shows. He has been involved in Atlanta Falcons radio broadcasts in the past as well.

Munson was born September 28, 1922. A native of Minnesota, he began his careera at the age of twenty and first rose to real prominence as a broadcaster in Nashville, Tennessee in the late 1940s where he announced, among other things, minor league baseball and the football and basketball games of the Vanderbilt University Commodores. He announced at Vanderbilt until he accepted a similar position as the announcer for University of Georgia football in 1966 to replace Ed Thilenius.

Munson was also a pioneering television sports announcer in the Nashville market. After getting involved with the University of Georgia broadcasts he would make the commute from Athens, Georgia, on game weekends back to his home in Nashville for several years in order to continue producing an outdoor sports program about hunting and fishing. Munson was one of the original Atlanta Braves broadcasters.

Now aged in his eighties, Munson is nevertheless still very active today. His graveley voice is one of the most distinctive in all of U.S. sports announcing and is endeared by Georgia Bulldog fans. Like many of his peers, most of whom he has outlived, Munson's style is to avoid any pretence of journalistic objectivity during his broadcasts. He is an unabashed Bulldogs fan, and his broadcasts reflect this in a way that is considered unacceptable amongst the modern generation of announcers. His unique turns of phrase – which are virtually always made off hand – are a part of most Bulldogs fans' vernacular.

Some of Munson's well known calls include:

"Run Lindsay!...Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott!...I broke my chair!" - calling wide receiver Lindsay Scott's 92-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Buck Belue against Florida in 1980
"Hunker down, you guys!...I know I'm asking a lot, but hunker down one more time!" - in a defensive series late in the game against Auburn in 1982, which clinched the SEC title for Georgia
"My God Almighty, he ran right through two men! Herschel ran right over two men! They had him dead away inside the 9. Herschel Walker went 16 yards. He drove right over those orange shirts and is just driving and running with those big thighs. My God, a freshman!" - calling Herschel Walker's first touchdown run against the Tennessee Volunteers in 1980.
"Look at the sugar falling out of the sky!" - at the end of the Auburn game
"We just stepped on their face with a hob-nailed boot and broke their nose! We just crushed their face!" - calling Georgia's last-second win over Tennessee in 2001
"Touchdown! Oh, God, a touchdown!" - calling David Greene's touchdown pass to Michael Johnson as Georgia defeated Auburn in 2002, clinching the Bulldogs' first-ever SEC Eastern Division championship
"Who do we sue if we have a stroke?" - asked of co-commentator Scott Howard after Matthew Stafford's game-winning drive and touchdown pass to Mohammed Massaquoi against Georgia Tech in 2006

[edit] References

[2004] "Honorable Mention", in Tony Barhart, Ed.: What it means to be a Bulldog: Vince Dooley, Mark Richt, and Georgia's greatest players. Chicago, Illinois: Triumph Books, pp.356-359. ISBN 1-57243-645-X.