Around the horn with Brent Musburger
It was Thursday night when my cellphone lit up in a dark, smoky place where newspaper types sometimes congregate after deadline. I didn’t recognize the phone number. I recognized the voice.
I was talking … live … with Brent Musburger, the legendary sportscaster who will call his seventh Las Vegas Bowl on Saturday afternoon for ABC — who on Friday was inducted into the Las Vegas Bowl Hall of Fame along with Marshawn Lynch, the reticent running back from California, and Rob Dondero, a bowl game founding father.
I wasn’t expecting to be talking … live … with Brent Musburger, because I had been trying to set up a short chat with him for days, and there was a misunderstanding with the people at ESPN who arrange his short chats.
So I winged it, in the manner that David Klingler winged it in Houston’s Run and Shoot offense when John Jenkins was coach.
The questions rolled from the top of my head with little rhyme and much less reason. Brent Musburger was beyond gracious in answering them.
Is it true the last game he called for CBS-S-S was the 1990 NCAA championship game between Duke and UNLV?
It was. He was fired April 1, 1990, either because he was seeking too much money, or because CBS-S-S wanted to give a young kid named Jim Nantz a shot from courtside. The next night, the Rebels destroyed Bobby Hurley.
“I went through great teams with the Runnin’ Rebs on Gucci Row and Jerry Tarkanian. I miss him to this day,” Musburger said.
I said I knew a guy at Las Vegas Motor Speedway who claims to have seen him walking the grandstands during an Indy Racing League event.
True again. Musburger has two sons, Blake and Scott. (Brent and wife Arlene have been married 53 years.) Blake lived in Las Vegas for a time. They would do stuff together. Scott will be his spotter for the Houston-San Diego State game.
Musburger seemed in no hurry to hang up, so I kept asking questions and making observations.
He said he considers the Little League World Series a plumb assignment, that Bobby Hull always signed autographs for kids, that Bobby Knight always expected him to make the dinner reservations for after the game.
He thinks the Raiders moving to Las Vegas is a “win-win” proposition.
“Remember when you would call games on TV, and you would mention the point spread, and you would take a lot of grief for it?” I said, channeling my inner Chris Farley, when he interviewed Paul McCartney on “Saturday Night Live.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“That was awesome.”
Brent Musburger said he never understood why broadcasters were reluctant to mention the point spread, when it was for information purposes only. Viewers were interested in the betting lines. Now that it’s not a big deal anymore, he feels vindicated.
I wanted to ask about when he got into a fistfight with Las Vegas legend Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder when they were “NFL Today” cohorts, but by then we were off in Montana, where he grew up.
Was he a fly fisherman? Sort of. He said his sons were fly fishermen; he was the guy who fetched the beer from the cooler.
Did he know Bobby Hauck?
The former UNLV coach (and current San Diego State assistant) grew up in Big Timber, and Cec — short for Cecil — Musburger had a ranch on the outskirts of town, out in the Sweet Grass (which is what they call the high school in Big Timber). Cec Musburger, Brent’s dad, hired the Hauck boys, Bobby and Tim, who played safety for seven NFL teams, to paint his fences.
“Cec told Bobby and his brother they could just work through lunch,” Musburger recalled. “Cec was from the Old Country.”
I had read that even at age 77, he prefers not to look back. So instead of inquiring about all the seminal sporting events he has witnessed, I asked if there was one he somehow had missed.
The NHL, he said. There was a time he wanted to call hockey. “Then they had the influx of eastern Europeans.”
It’s one thing to look live from Maple Leaf Gardens. It’s another to pronounce the names of the checking line when two-thirds hail from Russia and the Czech Republic.
Maybe he could still scratch his hockey itch here, I said.
Brent Musburger said he already has had more than his share of Vegas Golden Knights — only his were spelled without a ‘K.’
That sounded like a good note on which to close.
The legendary sportscaster Brent Musburger already had wished me a good night when it occurred I had forgotten to ask about his role in “Rocky II” and having his own action figure.
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.