In Defense of Gus Johnson

by CW on Mar 19, 2007 10:13 PM EDT in Basketball Comment 1 comment

We’ll get to the Winthrop breakdown sometime tomorrow. I have to step in and defend Gus Johnson from bitter Longhorn fans who wish to take out their Southern Cal frustrations – welcome to the club, boys – on poor Gus.

(To be fair, Pete sent me an angry message about Johnson on Saturday afternoon during the Louisville/Texas A&M game. I will immediately concede that the whole "Little Tiger!" thing was way overdone, but that’s one instance.

In a perfect life, we would always get a happy medium. There wouldn’t be amazingly high taxes or tax cuts to the points we’re drowning in debt, but somewhere in the middle where nobody was really happy, yet nobody was really pissed about things either. In a perfect life, we’d have a bevy of perfect play-by-play guys to choose from, each sporting event you turned to perfectly moderated.

Sadly, that’s not how it is. There’s a length list of play-by-play guys that I either enjoy or won’t turn the mute on upon hearing them, and it’s probably fair to list as many as I can think of right now before we get started: Brad Nessler, Verne Lundquist, Dick Enberg, Dan Schulman, Mike Tirico, Ron "Silver Fox" Franklin. Those are all play-by-play guys that I love listening to, and two of them anchored my favorite announcing teams of the weekend (Enberg/Bilas and Lundquist/Raftery). I would trust them to call any basketball game, from a random December non-conference tilt up through the Final Four.

There are two other announcers that I wouldn’t trust for championship duty, but who manage to make any game that they’re at seem like the most important place to be at that time:

Brent Musburger and Gus Johnson.

Musburger’s loathed by Irish fans after his terrible call of the 2005 Fiesta Bowl, where he barely mentioned Notre Dame was playing and seemed to be an Ohio State booster in the announcing booth commentating on the game. Yet give Musburger a Purdue/Minnesota game – that could be football or basketball, and it would still be at the same level of national relevancy – and manages to make that gym or stadium the place to be on that Saturday afternoon or Tuesday evening. Despite the fact this man has called a multiple of championship games over the years – go look up his NBA Finals intros from the 1980’s on YouTube – he pours his heart into every event he calls. Give him a game of too much importance and sometimes it seems like too much, but nobody makes a legitimately worthless game more entertaining than Musburger.

Except for maybe Gus Johnson, the entire point of this post. I do not want Gus Johnson calling my championship game, simply for the fact his head would explode from the sheer excitement of it and because as Pete pointed out, he doesn’t want there to be a screaming lunatic for the entirety of his experience when the joy of the gain should be the prevailing theme. But again, take a NCAA tournament game that Joe Sportsfan might not care too much about, and Johnson, with his legitimate, non-manufactured enthusiasm, will turn that arena into the most important place in the world at that time.

In January of 2004, I wrote this about Johnson at my old site:

Does anyone take an inconsequential play in an unimportant game and make it feel like the Immaculate Reception better than Gus Johnson?

That was three years ago! And Johnson’s been churning out the enthusiasm – again, genuine – for far longer than that. I first recognized the brilliance of Johnson in the realm of NFL, where he and Brent Jones were assigned to terrible AFC Central and AFC North games week after week. They always had to call some combination of the Browns, Bengals, Steelers and Ravens, and trust me, Pittsburgh and Baltimore didn’t contend. If Johnson hadn’t put his heart and soul into every game, he would have gone insane with the play of Kordell Stewart, the scowls of Bill Cowher and Brian Billick and the insipid teams the Ohio franchises consistently put on the field.

On Johnson and his old football partner, Brent Jones: "You have to give them some credit, though, because a pair of weaker minds and wills would have already committed suicide after doing so many AFC North games over the past two years."

When the ball bounced to him at the table yesterday, and he leaped up to grab it on camera, holding it high above his head, there was nothing contrived. He was, for a brief second, part of the game he loves so very dearly. He pours his heart into every broadcast, whereas one can imagine what would have happened if the ball had bounced to the United Center sideline and into the hands of Jim Nantz:

Nantz: Woah, Billy, look what we have here. This appears to be a basketball, friends; a March tradition unlike any other.

Packer: I’ll tell ya what, Jim, we’re kind enough to be here calling the game for these ungrateful kids, the least they could do is keep the damn ball away from me.

That’s my point of the inability to find a happy medium. I’d love to have eight perfect play-by-play guys for the first round of the tournament, but honestly, that’s not happening. On the other hand, if I have to choose between Johnson, even with all of his screaming and hyperbole, and Nantz/Packer, who simply seem to hate the fact they have to bother to show up each morning, I’m going with Johnson 100% of the time.

Texas fans should know what it feels like to have a potential unforgettable call stolen from them, as Keith Jackson’s amazing no call at Vince Young’s final touchdown run in the Rose Bowl resonated louder than anything he could have slurred at the time. I’ll put up with overexcitement for the first thirty-nine minutes to properly capture the beauty of a March Madness moment with Johnson’s joy wrapped up in the call. One of Nantz’s clichés, Jackson’s nothing or "The slipper still fits!"? Not even close, in my book.

I think part of Pete’s problem might be the natural backlash that accompanies someone’s rise to prominence. When Johnson was just an obscure play-by-play guy, he didn’t do anybody any harm. Now that he’s turning into a YouTube hero and a favorite subject of blog godfather-turned-public-enemy-number one Bill Simmons, it’s only natural the people in these parts start breaking him down as opposed to just enjoying his effervescent joy.

Johnson might be a little much to take at times, but see if you don’t miss him even a little bit come Thursday and Friday when Nantz or James Brown is trying their hardest to remain detached from the game at hand. Sometimes it’s great to have a detached play-by-play man simply calling it as he sees it, but sometimes – like when 19 to 22-year olds are playing their hearts out for a chance to survive and advance – I want an announcer I know who’s as captivated by the action as I am.

Thank you, Gus, for loving the game.

Update [2007-3-20 10:49:55 by CW]: Awful Announcing has their grades for the first two rounds up, which is worth looking into. I also like James Brown in the studio but though him not-so-hot on play-by-play while I'm an Enberg guy, so I really enjoyed he and Bilas.

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Good post, Chris

And as they always say, there's no accounting for taste.

I'll just offer a few points. First, I've -always- hated Gus Johnson. I hate him when he was screaming like a lunatic during my Steelers games. I hated him when he got the crappiest games of the tournament because CBS didn't trust him with anything good. And I hate him now as his popularity grows. So it has nothing to do with his rise to prominence.

In fact, I -agree- with you that his genuine enthusiasm makes him a likable character. As far as people deserving to have success, Gus gets my vote. He's earnest and he works hard. I like that.

I just hate listening to him call basketball games. I think he's corny. (REALLY corny.) I think he peaks way too early. I think he yells at inopportune moments. And I think he distracts from the game itself.

Everyone who disagrees with my post says, "But he's so genuine," as though the fact that he really cares about the sport makes it okay that he yells corny crap for the entire broadcast. To me, Gus remains a guy who I wish great things for in his life, but someone I could absolutely live without on my television. He ruins the games.

PB at BON

by HornsFan on Mar 19, 2007 11:29 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs