Brent Musburger

Brent Woody Musburger became one of sports broadcasting's most iconic voices over nearly five decades, transforming every game he called into a major event through his signature gravitas and storytelling ability that made audiences feel they were witnessing history. Born May 26, 1939 in Portland, Oregon and raised in Billings, Montana, Musburger sold programs at Billings Mustangs games as a boy and played Little League Baseball alongside future major league pitcher Dave McNally. After attending Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and working briefly as a minor league baseball umpire in the Class-D Midwest League during the 1959 season, Musburger began his career as a sportswriter for a now-defunct Chicago American newspaper.

In 1968, Musburger joined CBS, starting as a sports anchor for WBBM radio and television before CBS Sports hired him full-time in 1973. By 1975, he became the original host of The NFL Today, the groundbreaking Sunday pregame show that consistently ranked as television's highest-rated NFL studio program. His signature catchphrase "You are looking live..." became synonymous with weekend sports broadcasts, while his stylized pronunciation of "CBS" ("C.B. eeezz") created another memorable trademark. Musburger is credited with coining the phrase "March Madness" to describe the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament while covering the Final Four.

His most legendary broadcasts captured sports history at its most dramatic. On November 23, 1984, he called Doug Flutie's miraculous Hail Mary touchdown pass to Gerard Phelan that defeated defending national champion Miami 47-45 in the Orange Bowl, forever known as "Hail Flutie." In October 1995, working for ABC, Musburger delivered an electric call when Edgar Martinez's eleventh-inning walk-off double scored Ken Griffey Jr. to send Seattle Mariners to their first League Championship Series: "Mariners win it! Mariners win it!" He also provided the soundtrack to the 1988 Miami-Notre Dame showdown known as "Catholics vs. Convicts" and the triple-overtime thriller between Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns in the 1976 NBA Finals.