Our own two states have experienced as much change or more than any other in the past couple of decades, as the pastoral retreats of the North Georgia mountains, and the truly undeveloped parts of Florida (Econfina River comes to mind), once commonplace, are rare.

The natural tendency of all people as they age is to resist change irrationally, even as the young embrace it irrationally. One thing about the South (or at I least delude myself into thinking is true about the South) is that we have such a sense of self, place, and land that our traditions die harder, regrettably even the bad ones, but blessedly also the good ones.

Larry Munson, and John Ward,Al Ciraldo, and Cawood Ledford (and many others) all belong to an era where the nation wasn't drenched in widespread television coverage of sport. As a kid maybe my football team would be the game of the week maybe once a year, or not at all. So I was out in the yard with nothing but a radio, a toy football, and playmates to hang on every word, to create the mental picture of what was taking place on distant fields of battle.

Now our beloved warriors are live and in color, and often in HD, every week. What room is left, asked Mark Bradley in the Atlanta paper today, for the mere wordsmiths? Why do we need the richness of human expression to paint those mental pictures when the real picture is brought home in a clarity which exposes every mole and facial hair?

The question answers itself.

So the passage of time has taken its toll on Larry Munson, and now its time for a change. And it is of no great significance to the nation. But the preservation of college sports radio, and what he represents about it, is of enormous significance to the region. It was once the only source, and will never be again. But for all it can't do, there are things it can do that no other medium can.

Consider Mick Hubert and Larry Munson. Munson would be worked up and worried even when Georgia played the Little Sisters of the Poor. Mick Hubert exudes supreme confidence. Georgia rivals love to hear Munson cry. I would love to hear a scintilla of doubt and uncertainty in Mick Hubert's voice (I'm still waiting- I may be waiting for some time).They couldn't be more different, but they both bring the same thing to college sports radio; their distinctive originality, so much so that, as was once written of the creative flair of French rugby, when they are at their best they resemble nothing other than themselves.

If anyone cares to provide it, I'd enjoy stories about Mick's most memorable calls, and I'd also like to know about his predecessor.

Since it now appears that Larry Munson has called his last Cocktail Party, I will indulge your good hospitality to share a story about his call in the 1980 game. Not the "metal steel chair" and "Run, Lindsey" and "all those Dawg people with all those condominiums" parts that have been played ad (at least to your ears) nauseum down through the years. This was a part that never made the cut for posterity. To appreciate it you're going to have to put down your partisan mindset; to do what Matthew McConahey ( I don't know how to spell his last name and I'm not going to bother to look it up. You know who I'm talking about) asked the all-white jury to do in "A Time to Kill".

By the time Georgia arrived in Jacksonville in 1980, many were openly questioning its lofty ranking. It was undefeated only because it had managed to win several games where it had been badly outplayed. The Clemson game was to most prominent example, but far from the only one. Georgia, it was said, was just lucky. Anticipating the nation's understandable reaction to the big play (especially when combined with Georgia Tech's improbable tie with Notre Dame that same day, propelling Georgia to No. 1), Munson fell silent for almost a complete minute while the pandemonium raged and then gradually subsided.Then he remarked, "You say luck? Well, yeah. But he caught the ball and he ran. And the other guy threw it."

It was the perfect post-script, delivered with just the right pitch. A pitch that said without saying that luck was involved, but so was execution, that who should win on paper is to who actually won on the field as air is to rock. That for this brief moment in time, the meek were strong, they had inherited the Earth, it was Georgia's world, and the woulda-coulda-shoulda Goliaths in South Bend and Austin were just living in it.

Thats what college sports radio can do. It gave us the "Redwood Forest" of Alabama, Give-him-six" in Knoxville, "Toe-meets-leather" in Atlanta, "Touchdowwwnn Auburrnn" on the Plains, and "My God. Did you see what he did?" in Athens.

May it be with us always, because its a part of who we are.