Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery: The Best Bromance in Sports

          When March comes around you can count on the madness that comes with the NCAA tournament: A 15-seed upsetting a 2-seed, an 11-seed reaching the Final Four. What is more predictable than the games themselves is the greatness of two of the men that call some of those games, the broadcasting tandem made up of play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist and color commentator Bill Raftery.

         
          Lundquist may technically be the play-by-play announcer and Raftery, on paper, may be the color commentator, but both possess the right amount of expertise and talent to be able to cross over roles like overlapping circles in a Venn diagram (or should I say Verne diagram?). Lundquist displays the basketball knowledge to be able to break down a play on the spot just enough to introduce it and then pass it along to his partner. Raftery can then drive the introductory point home. If they were teammates on the court running a fast break, Lundquist would be the one dribbling it down court waiting for the defender to bite, then dishing it off to Raftery, who would put the exclamation point on the play, “send[ing] it in,” as Raftery would so enthusiastically describe it. However, what makes this partnership so great is that those roles could almost just as easily be flipped around. This is not an appraisal of them coming out of a television timeout when they may have a few minutes to prepare their lead and transitions, this is an evaluation of them when they are speaking off-the-cuff, during the rate of play. Each knows when it is his turn to speak and when it is time to pass the talking stick to his partner. It is a relationship you cannot fake, but rather comes from the pure enjoyment of being in the company of the one another.

It is ironic that such a big part of being a play-by-play man is knowing when to keep quiet. Lundquist knows when to describe the game and when to let the game to speak for itself, which is a lot easier said than done and is an issue many other announcers tend to have. He does not try to outshine the game but rather buff it with turtle wax to make it that much more appealing. He drizzles you with fun facts and insider information between modest yet effective adjectives he uses to help get the game to glisten just that much more.

There are some actors who are so good at what they do that it almost feels like they are over-acting. Raftery is one of those actors in broadcaster form. He toes that line so perfectly between genuine reaction and overreaction so that when he uses that distinctively low, raspy voice he turns to when he gets excited, you know it is authentic. Never overusing his catch phrases, like “Onions!” or “With a kiss,” but waiting for the right moments to the point where it just feels like the only natural response.

They speak over each other sometimes, but that is only because they are thinking the same thing at the same moment. They may not be perfect, but that is what makes them so perfect. They tease each other like old friends but know when to get serious and change their tone. Individually they are great at what they do, but much like the teams they call during games, they are more than the sum of their parts.

          They are two elders sipping on homemade lemonade as they reminisce about the good ol’ days, they are a couple of kids at the bus stop vivaciously anticipating their first day of school, and they are everything in between. They are conversing and analyzing at the same time, they just happen to be doing it all in front of a national audience. It is a match made in broadcasting heaven.