Watch: Jim Nantz offers touching tribute to longtime Final Four analyst Billy Packer
CBS broadcasting legend Jim Nantz offered a touching tribute to Billy Packer after the longtime Final Four basketball analyst died Thursday night at the age of 82.
"I think Billy will go down in history as one of the greatest analysts in the history of sports television," Nantz remarked during an appearance on "CBS Mornings," per the Barrett Sports Media website. "I think that when you look at the pantheon of great analysts, you’ve got John Madden and you’ve got Billy Packer. You start right there. He blessed this network for a long time, from 1982 to 2008. One of my dearest friends. It’s been a restless night thinking of the Packer family, which I’m very close to. I got to speak to Billy the day before he died, and tell him I loved him."
According to Barrett Sports Media and Jeff Borzello of ESPN, Packer announced 34 NCAA Tournament Final Fours and worked as a color commentator for each Final Four from 1975 through 2008. He won a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio and Sports Event Analyst in 1993 and was the voice of college basketball's premier event for an entire generation of fans and viewers.
Packer's "Simon says ... championship" call after Miles Simon guided the Arizona Wildcats to the national title in 1997 is known among those who weren't yet born because CBS has used it in numerous video intros for its NCAA Tournament broadcasts:
"He was a genius," Nantz added about Packer. "There was no one that could look at the field — in this case, the court — and see everything. He’s gonna be very much missed. He loved college basketball and he looked after it as a guardian of the sport. He’s just a giant. A giant heart, that’s all I can tell you."
Packer had been hospitalized for the past several weeks with multiple medical issues and died due to kidney failure. ACC Network host Mark Packer announced the death of his famous father via Twitter on Thursday night:
Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing mentioned that Billy Packer worked alongside fellow broadcasting icons such as Nantz, Brent Musburger, Verne Lundquist, Dick Enberg, and Curt Gowdy.
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