Friday, August 31, 2007

Legendry voices the last of the radio generation


by Thomas Stinson
Larry Munson's part of a dwindling band of college football radio legends working in a television age. With a huge influx of new small-town radio stations after World War II, it was not uncommon to find six or more stations broadcasting any given game to any given
backwater town. That gave Lindsey Nelson, then the sports information officer at Tennessee, an idea. In 1948, UT became the first school to create its own exclusive network. The school,
and not the stations, would market the games on one originating feed throughout the state with one hand-picked announcer –Nelson – who would incite the masses. Texaco leaped to sponsor the Vol Network and went about setting up similar syndicates in the region. Suddenly, everyone heard the same identifiable broadcast and everyone in Tennessee knew Lindsey Nelson.
Read more about Larry Munson, the Voice of University of Georgia at:
Atlanta Journal Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/uga/stories/2007/08/29/cficons_0830.html
Photo/Larry Munson/The Red Zone, Athens, Georgia.