Please Retire Billy Packer
I really enjoy this time of year in sports, baseball is about to begin with spring training wrapping up in a couple week. Even better, it’s the middle of March Madness where upsets and buzzer beaters abound.
My Purdue Boilermakers were dominant in their 1st round game vs. Arizona. However, they lost to the Florida Gators in a hard fought, 2nd round game where they mostly outplayed the Gators. If not for many non-called fouls (thanks a lot refs) and missed free throws the Boilers should have had the upset win, but it was not to be. Grrrrumble Grrrrumble…
I enjoy listening to some of the announcers and analysts that call tournament games every year. For instance, Gus Johnson (Mr Excitement… in a good way) and Bill Raftery (”Onions!” “Manaman!”(man-to-man)) come to mind. On the other hand, I really dislike listening to Jim Nance and Billy Packer. It still befuddles me every year why those two are the #1 crew to call games and end up calling the Final Four games.
Jim Nance is ok and does a decent job, but he doesn’t do his homework on things like how to pronounce players names and I wish he wasn’t so dry. He’s more concerned with finding spots to use his canned, un-original cliches rather than get the basics correct. He’s great for football and golf, but needs to avoid basketball.
Billy Packer is not my idea of a fun to listen to color analyst yet he has called it seems every single important (non ESPN) college basketball game in my lifetime! I don’t get it. He breaks down what is happening ok, but thats it. He’s boring, not funny and does not sound excited. He is cranky and just plain wrong many times despite the fact the video clearly shows otherwise. This is a great article by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com titled “The curse of Billy Packer” about this very subject and I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Please CBS stop the madness! Not the tournament, just Billy Packer. Do us a favor and force Billy Packer into retirement or something before the Final Four. I really don’t want to hear a grumpy old man analyzing a game! Give me a funny, excited about basketball, that knows his stuff old man like Bill Raftery. “Send it in big fella!”
