Caroline put her right arm around her father. Moments later, Nantz put his left arm around her. While UConn went to cut nets, Nantz stepped down from the platform and went to find his oldest daughter, Caroline. Nantz congratulated UConn on winning the national title and interviewed Dan Hurley, the head coach of the Huskies, and several players. Jim Nantz with some amazing words as he wraps up his final National Title Game ❤️ /NtxPkxzcApĪfter the confetti had fallen, Nantz took the platform at midcourt to conduct the postgame ceremonies one last time. “To you, to everybody in the college game, to the CBS family, my family, all the viewers, thank you for being my friend,” Nantz said. With his emotions flowing, Nantz signed off one final time with a riff on his famous “ Hello friends” greeting. Once the final buzzer sounded, Nantz finally took a moment to bid his farewell and express his gratitude for the journey college basketball had taken him on. “Raft brought it up late in the game and I said, ‘I love you but with all due respect this a moment that belongs to UConn.’” “I just didn’t want this to be about my farewell,” Nantz said. Late in the game when it was clear that UConn had the title secured, Raftery brought Nantz’s name into the conversation on the broadcast. But he didn’t let it affect the way he called the game, keeping the focus of every word he spoke on the two teams on the court. Internally, Nantz realized his time calling college basketball games was winding down with each second that ticked off the clock. He wanted the spotlight to completely be on the student-athletes on the court.Īs soon as the ball was tipped it was business as usual for Nantz. While appreciative for all the love he had been shown, Nantz once again reiterated that he didn’t want the broadcast to be about him. “It meant a lot to me to do this in Houston. “This was the perfect place, as I had hoped it would be,” Nantz said. “And that love was swelling up my heart to the point I was afraid that it might spill over.”Īll of it led to Monday night in Houston, a city near and dear to his heart. Those are just a few of the many names Nantz said he had heard from. Even legendary Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski reached out to extend his congratulations to Nantz. Colleagues, including former Dallas Cowboys quarterback turned CBS color analyst Tony Romo, gave Nantz a call. Because that’s how I first worked with a microphone right inside Hofheinz Pavilion.” Feeling the loveįrom Birmingham, Alabama, to Kansas City, Missouri, Nantz had been showered with love throughout his farewell tour.īlaine McCallister, Fred Couples and John Horn, Nantz’s college roommates, all reached out to their good friend. It seems probably pretty easy but for me, I don’t know, it wasn’t. That really got back to my roots,” Nantz said. “Maybe the hardest thing for me was doing the starting lineups. One by one, Nantz called off each player’s name with perfect pronunciation, yet inside he experienced an emotional rollercoaster as the 63-year-old thought back to the way he kick-started his career. Sitting just a few miles down the road from where his career started, Nantz grabbed the microphone one final time on Monday night.Īs he has done for years, Nantz proceeded to announce the starting lineups for Connecticut and San Diego State. There will be people that love it as much, but no one can love it more.” No one can love college basketball more than I do. “It’s a love affair that will take me all the way to my grave. “I’m hopelessly in love with it,” Nantz said. It was there that his great love for college basketball was born. “Because all of them were on that journey (with me).”Īs tipoff drew near, the lights inside NRG Stadium went down and Nantz got on the public address microphone and opened with his patented greeting.Īs a student at the University of Houston, Nantz was the public address announcer for the Cougars basketball games at Hofheinz Pavilion. “I wanted them to be sitting with me at the table tonight, symbolically,” Nantz said. He placed the pictures on the table in front of him, where they remained throughout the course of the night. The last was of himself and his longtime courtside partner Billy Packer, who died in January. The second came from the vault as it pictured Nantz and the base crew he worked the first 20 years of his career at CBS with. The first was of Nantz alongside Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson, the crew he has called countless NCAA Tournament games with. “I knew I needed about two hours by myself just to kind of gather myself because I felt like my emotions were right there at a tipping point.”Īfter spending some time alone, Nantz headed to NRG Stadium to put on the headset and call his 32nd and final national championship.
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