Larry Munson, former radio announcer for the University of Georgia, passed away Sunday night at his home in Athens, Ga., at the age of 89. Munson, who became famous for his memorable play-by-play calls of Georgia football games, retired in 2008 after 42 years as the radio voice of the Bulldogs.Larry Munson, the legendary voice of University of Georgia football for 42 years, died Sunday evening at his Athens residence due to complications from pneumonia. He was 89.
Munson retired from a lifetime of sports broadcasting two games into the 2008 season after working only home games in 2007. He had an unmistakable delivery and continually displayed a partisanship for the Bulldogs, which endeared himself to thousands and thousands of Georgia fans.
“Larry Munson is to Georgia football what fried chicken is to a tailgate party,” the late Lewis Grizzard wrote in 1985. “You can’t enjoy one without the other.”
Born in Minneapolis in 1922, Munson began his storied career shortly after World War II, when he used his military discharge pay to enroll in broadcasting school. After 10 weeks of training, he got his first job at a station in Devil’s Lake, N.D.
Munson came to Georgia in 1966 from Vanderbilt and called Bulldogs basketball games in addition to football games from 1987 to ’96. He also called Atlanta Falcons games from 1989 to ’92.