• 2015 CoSIDA Special Awards general announcement/release
• Special Awards feature story schedule
by Bill Little, University of Texas (retired)/CoSIDA Hall of Fame
In seminary they remembered his “golden voice.” Austin television viewers first saw Verne Lundquist as a native son who was the sports director on the city’s only station. In college he played intramural sports and worked as a disc joc
key.
He volunteered as a runner in the press box at The University of Texas for the legendary Jones Ra
msey and his assistant, Orland Sims.
Folks in Dallas found him first when he hosted a local bowling show on weeknight TV.
In fact, that is where our story began.
Lundquist, who will receive the coveted Jake Wade Award from CoSIDA for his contributions to collegiate sports coverage, has ridden destiny to the top of the sports broadcasting profession in a career that spans over 50 years.
But as good as he has gotten—and he has gotten to be very, very good—it is his sincerity and his humility that have coupled with his talent to make him one of the most respected people in all of sports journalism.
The ability to tell the story, and to laugh with you rather than at you, define this Austin, Texas, native who has been a fixture on television from the days of the black and white TVs all the way to the big screen super HDs of today.
The fact that he is a truly nice guy helps a lot.
You can’t spend time with Verne Lundquist without recognizing that.
“Verne Lundquist has the unique ability to wrap history into present day and tell a vivid story of an athletic event as it unfolds, as if painting a picture on canvass,” says Herb Vincent, Associate Commissioner for Communications of the SEC. “His passion for people and the games he describes sets him apart from others in the business of sports broadcasting.”
He is the perfect example of one who has risen to great success, but who never forgot his roots.
One of his favorite stories comes from an incident that occurred in 1975, when he was headed back to his home in Dallas after doing a national telecast for ABC of a Thanksgiving Day game between Texas and Texas A&M in College Station.
By this time, he was a budding star. His interviews of Dallas Cowboy players were airing on TV in Dallas, and he was a sports anchor at one of the Metroplex’s biggest stations. He was a part of the Dallas Cowboys’ Radio Network. Lunquist had just finished his first nation-wide telecast for ABC, and when he pulled into the full-service Exxon gasoline station in small town of Fairfield, Texas, he was sporting the familiar yellow jacket with the network patch on the front pocket.
Lundquist knew his fame was spreading with the owner of the local filling station came out to service his car. As the man was cleaning the windshield, Lundquist noticed that he did a double take as he peered th
rough the glass.
“He’s recognized me,” thought Lundquist. “He must have seen the game. He knows who I am.”
At that moment, the man stopped, and yelled at his wife who was inside the store.
“Hey Rudy,” he said. “Get out here. Here’s that BFD (‘Bowling for Dollars’) guy on TV!”
Since that time, Lundquist’s career has spanned forty years of network broadcasting, including stints with ABC, TNT, and two with his current
employer, CBS.
“Whether it’s from a press box on Saturday afternoon in the SEC, courtside in March, on the 16th hole at Augusta or by the ice in Lillehammer, when his voice introduces an event, you know you’re about to hear something special,” says Vincent.
Lundquist was born in Duluth, Minnesota, but as the old joke in the Lone Star State of Texas goes, “he got to Texas as fast as he could.” He graduated from Austin High School, then attended Texas Lutheran College (now Texas Lutheran University).
The son of a Lutheran minister, he attended Augustana Seminary in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1962. It was there that his “Golden Voice” was the highlight of the seminary class on preaching.
In the early 1960s, Lundquist volunteered to help in the press box at Texas Longhorn football games, and soon moved into a role as the sports director of KTBC-TV, the Austin television station owned by the family of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. From Austin, he migrated to the larger market of Dallas, where he joined the sports staff of the ABC affiliate WFAA.
At that same time, the NFL was growing its fledgling expansion team in the area that would become known as the Dallas Cowboys. Verne, who had interviewed the team’s coach, Tom Landry, soon was working as the radio voice of the Cowboys. In 1974, he joined ABC and he hasn’t left network television since.
Verne and his wife and frequent traveling companion, Nancy, now maintain homes in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, as well as Denver. For years prior to the death of his great friend, Doak Walker, Lundquist and Walker hosted a golf tournament in the mountains for friends, celebrities and the media.
Because he has a great feel of the “moment,” his understated calls have underscored for millions of people some of the greatest memories in sports.
“That’s true,” acknowledged Herb Vincent. “but, best of all, he is a friend to everyone he meets, a genuine gentleman who has a story for every occasion and never forgets a name.”
With his quick wit, Lundquist is seldom at a loss for words, but one of those rare occasi
ons came this past April when he was calling the final appearance of Ben Crenshaw at the 16th hole at the Master’s Golf Tournament in Augusta.
When Lundquist was working for that TV station in Austin, he had done a feature on Ben - when Crenshaw was 13 - and that was fifty years
ago. Crenshaw’s sister, Bonnie, was a high school classmate of Lundquist’s at Austin High, and Ben was about to enter Verne’s and Bonnie’s alma mater, Austin High School. Its colors were maroon and white, and its motto was “Loyal Forever.” As Lundquist recalls, it was through Bonnie that he first learned of “Ben’s golfing gift.”
The emotion on the final round for the beloved Crenshaw on that Friday in A
ugusta had included an outpouring from patrons, fellow golfers and
even the media. Like Lundquist, Crenshaw has that ability to touch you, right down to your soul.
So as announcer after announcer closed their final moment covering Crenshaw, there were many touching moments. But none could match Lundquist.
As Lundquist had parked his golf cart, carefully out of sight from the TV cameras, some fifty yards from his announce position in the tower by the 16th hole—perhaps the most familiar hole in golf to millions of viewers, he had walked through the crowd to get to work. On the way, an elderly couple stopped him and congratulated him for his years of great work.
“You probably won’t remember this,” said the woman, “but we used to watch you when you did that bowling show in Dallas.”
As Ben Crenshaw left the 16th green for the last time, he stopped, looked up and pointed at Lundquist.
Fighting his emotions, the man who can laugh at himself and smile at the rest of the world was able to get out only one thing as he choked back the tears:
“Loyal forever,” was all that he said.