Happy Trails, Billy Packer

As I watched the stock market open substantially higher this morning only to drop all the way into negative territory, I needed something to cheer me up. I got it in the form of wonderful news. No, the Giants didn’t make a Madden-like trade of Jeremy Shockey for Champ Bailey. No, Tila Tequila was not killed in a fiery automobile accident. And unfortunately, Fox isn’t bringing back Temptation Island (as far as I know). The great news I received was that Billy Packer is out as a college basketball color man for CBS. This was the best news coming from the broadcasting industry since ESPN told Joe Theismann to hit the bricks last year. For some inexplicable reason, Packer has been the go-to analyst for the Final Four for the past 34 years (7 with NBC and 27 with CBS). Finally, for the first time in my life, college basketball fans will be mercifully reprieved from our punishment for loving the NCAA tournament –- listening to Billy Packer.

“Fudge,” as he was known in some circles, constantly filled his two hours of airtime with comments that were either obvious, annoying, dead wrong, or not really dead wrong but still ridiculously stupid. One of the things that annoyed people most about “Fudge” was his arrogance. Comment after comment reeked of Billy knowing he was smarter than everyone else in the world when it came to basketball. What annoyed me most about Packer was his insecurity, which manifested itself in Billy incessantly pointing out where a previous comment of his was actually (more or less) on the mark. For example Billy might open the game saying something like, “Jordan may have a tough time scoring on Thomas tonight. Thomas is one of the best defenders in the country.” And then EVERY time Jordan touched the ball and didn’t score we’d have to hear Billy chime in with a comment like:

“You see Jim? Jordan missed that shot because Thomas was all over him.”

“See what I mean? Jordan is trying to go to the hole but he just can’t get past Thomas.”

“Are you seeing this? Jordan can’t do anything against Thomas– as I said, he’s a great defender.”

“Remember when I said Thomas was going to be able to stop Jordan? Jordan just passed the ball into the post because he knows he can’t do anything with Thomas guarding him.”

“Coach Williams just sat Jordan because even he knows Jordan doesn’t stand a chance of scoring on Thomas– just what I said earlier.”

“See how Jordan just hit his first three? Remember I said he won’t be able to score on Thomas, well Thomas is on the bench.”

“Again, like I said, Thomas comes back into the game and Jordan misses another shot.”

At which point I’m now yelling at the TV: “But Thomas had switched off on the pick and was guarding someone else and Jordan had a WIDE OPEN shot you jackass!” But I think you get the point.

As awful as Packer was as a color commentator (and make no mistake about it, he was awful) I actually backed him during his most recent “controversy.” After the Kansas-North Carolina semifinal game this past season Packer caught a lot of heat for proclaiming, “The game is over” when the Jayhawks took a 38-12 lead, only to watch the Tar Heels cut the lead to 4 midway through the second half. That wasn’t the first time an analyst prematurely called the end to a lopsided game and it surely won’t be the last. I much prefer this type of “error” to the announcer who tells me that a twenty point game with two and a half minutes left is still in question because “stranger things have happened” or “you never know.” Yes I do. This one is over.

But I digress. Back to Billy Packer sucking as a color commentator. CBS could have chosen anyone (except Susan Waldman) to replace Packer and I would be satisfied. I wouldn’t care if they hired John the Stutterer from Howard Stern (not to be confused with Stuttering John) or Corky from “Life Goes On” to do color commentary for college basketball, as long as Billy Packer isn’t there it’s a net gain in my book. But instead of Corky CBS went with someone who has some basketball knowledge and gave the Final Four color commentary job to Clark Kellog. Personally I would have liked to see Bill Raftry get a shot, but I have no complaints about Kellog. He’s very knowledgeable and passionate about college basketball. Kellog is interesting and engaging while lacking the obnoxiousness and pompousness Packer exudes. With this move CBS has guaranteed that the NCAA tournament will be at least seven times more pleasant to watch than in years-past. Now if we could just get ABC and ESPN to drop Bill Walton.