Mitch Sneed at Large

I got some sad news today. Larry Munson has unplugged his microphone and headed to the lake.
Don’t know Larry Munson? You must not be part of the Georgia Bulldog Nation.
For those of us who bleed Red and Black like me, the legendary voice of the Georgia Bulldogs painted a picture over the radio of the game every Saturday afternoon.  There may be better technical announcers, people who knew football better than Munson, but no one can paint a picture better than the man.
Larry is 85 and has been doing Georgia games for 43 years. His calls are legendary. A game without Larry is a game. A game with Larry is an event. You go to the games with a radio because you didn’t want to miss what Larry might say.
If you were in a car and couldn’t get to the game, Larry was there.
I had moved to Fort Wayne Indiana in 2002 and was in the car when the Bulldogs had to beat Auburn to get to the SEC Championship game.  I found WSB radio on the AM radio in my old Ford Festiva. Then I heard it. “Man, we’ve had some shots, haven’t we? Snap to David Greene, there he goes again in the corner and we jump up….Touchdown! Oh, God, a touchdown! With 85 seconds…“
I pulled the car off the road, jumped out and started running around like a crazy man. Michael Johnson had just scored and Georgia had finally won a spot in the title game.
I got to know Larry over the years. Between covering games and him writing a column for some of the papers I worked at we talked often there for a while. His dry sense of humor is priceless. He could tell a story and once he met you, he always knew you.
He was a legend in my house. I remember him calling the house to check on his column once and him telling Debbie, “He’s out building a deck? Don’t he know he can pay people to do that.”
My girls couldn’t believe that Larry had actually called the house. They bragged about that to all their friends.
I even named a dog after Larry. Munson was a good old dog,  just like Larry
Living up here in ACC country, when my Bulldogs aren’t on television, I resorted to paying $49.95 so that I could listen to Larry call the games this season over the internet.
Crazy? Maybe, but if you were a Bulldog fan you’d understand. If you haven’t heard Larry live, it was your loss. He is a homer, but he is our homer.
We wish him well and hope that his health improves so he can enjoy his retirement.
Check out some of the best at this site: http://www.larrymunson.com/audio.asp
If your computer won’t get sound, this is the way Wikipedia translated some of the calls. You can read them, but you need to hear it in his own voice.
“Buck back. Third down on the 8. In trouble. Got a block behind him. Going to throw on the run. Complete to the 25, to the 30. Lindsay Scott 35, 40. Lindsay Scott 45, 50, 45, 40. Run Lindsay! Twenty-five, 20, 15, 10, 5. Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Well, I don’t believe it. 92 yards and Lindsay really got in a footrace, I broke my chair, I came right through a chair, a metal STEEL chair…Do you know what is gonna happen here tonight? And up at St. Simons, Jekyll Island, and all those places, where all those Dawg people have got those condominiums for four days…MAN, is there gonna be some property destroyed tonight!“ - calling wide receiver Lindsay Scott’s 92-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Buck Belue against Florida in 1980
“Hunker down, you guys! If you didn’t hear me, you guys, hunker down!...I know I’m asking a lot, you guys, but hunker it down one more time!“ - in a defensive series late in the game against Auburn in 1982, which clinched the SEC title for Georgia
“We hand it off to Herschel, there’s a hole….5….10…12, he’s running over people! Oh, you Herschel Walker!...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 in 1982.
“So we’ll try to kick one a hundred thousand miles. We’re holding it on our own 49-and-a-half ... gonna try to kick it sixty yards plus a foot-and-a-half ... and Butler kicked a long one ... a long one ... Oh my God! Oh my God! ... The stadium is worse than bonkers! I can’t believe what he did! This is ungodly!“ - calling Kevin Butler’s field goal in the final seconds to win over Clemson in 1984.
“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
“Man, we’ve had some shots, haven’t we? Snap to David Greene, there he goes again in the corner and we jump up….Touchdown! Oh, God, a touchdown! With 85 seconds…“ - 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
“Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown, my God, a touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown! Massaqoui!“ - Matthew Stafford’s game-winning touchdown pass to Mohamed Massaquoi against Georgia Tech in 2006
Larry we will miss hearing your voice.