It's Memorial Day, friends; one of those truly special days that should be something we ponder every day.
Here's an excellent photo collection of the area Scouts and their families participating in the annual flag placement at the Chattanooga National Cemetery on Saturday.
(As a reminder, they need volunteers on Tuesday to collect those puppies, too.)
As we normally do on holidays, we'll be abbreviated today and return Tuesday with our normal programming.
From the satellite offices from the dock overlooking beautiful Lake Martin, it's go time.
We'll roll with a top-five list and call it a holiday. Deal? Deal.
Not sure if you heard the tragic news from Auburn, but Rod Bramblett, an '88 AU grad and the voice of the Tigers athletic teams over the last 16 years, and his wife, Paula, were killed in a car crash over the weekend.
Bramblett was excellent at his craft. And I say that not because he was the voice of my team, but as a college sports fan who realized Bramblett had reached the perfect balance of professional and partisan.
He was aces and replaced legendary Jim Fyffe, which is something that is never easy and often disastrous in terms of fan acceptance.
Bramblett also had an all-time moment. His "Auburn's gonna win the football game!" call of the Kick-Six was perfect and will be around as long as highlight packages are still replayed.
With that, here's a Top 5 list of the all-time best college sports announcers for specific fan bases. It's a job that requires a connection to a deeply biased and connected listening audience but with enough balance to not make it feel like it's the flagship station for the East Bumble Middle School Bees.
Rest easy, Rod. You were a joy to listen to.
1. Larry Munson. Simply put, he's the Jordan of this category, and that's not taking anything away from the excellent dudes on this list by any means. Just know this: when your announcer has a published "greatest hits" collection like Munson does, well, you know he's done something. And I'll go one step farther. When you list the living creatures who are all-time Georgia icons, you can quibble about the order, but if you give me Herschel, Vince Dooley, Uga and Munson, I like my chances to sweep the Bulldogs Rushmore.
2. John Ward. The longtime Tennessee legend may have been the most complete in terms of being just as great at hoops as he was at football. And he was always a sweetheart of a man. What a gracious and kind gentleman. "It's football time in Tennessee" is as close to perfect as announcer has ever reached. (Edit: Thanks to Gary and a slew of others for emailing that of course his name is John ward. Although Larry does fine work too. Sorry been traveling all day with limited access to email.)
3. Cawood Ledford. What a decorated career for the longtime voice of the Kentucky Wildcats. Amazingly, his final game in a Hall of Fame career was the all-timer that was Duke-UK in the 1992 East Regional, and after the game, Coach K pulled up a chair as Cawood was saying his goodbyes. Wow.
4. Woody Durham. The longtime U voice inspired so many, including his son, Wes, who is also aces. (Wes moved on to ACC TV and the Falcons after his time at Georgia Tech. Considering that Tech went from Al Ciraldo to Wes Durham is a whole lot of greatness there friends. And yes, leaving Al off - "Toe meets leather and it's a high kick" - was difficult.)
5. Eli Gold. Such great pipes, right? His voice is amazing and his style is a great blend of the connection between the fan base and the unaffiliated listener. And here's one different challenge that Eli handles amazingly well. All of the flagship guys know a vast majority of their audience come with their emotions on their sleeve and want to hear the details from their team's perspective. Munson was the guy you'd watch a game with and bemoan the refs or how much time was left or how the other team was almost super human. Ward and Cawood and Woody were the guys you wanted to watch the game with because their observations were so good and their knowledge and words were always better than yours. (Yes, the stat crews help a bunch there too.) Eli, however, has perfected a pure blend of mild arrogance and critical expectations during Alabama's march to elite excellence in the last 10 years that I am certain every Alabama fans appreciates and connects to. It's special.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.