![]() ![]() ![]() In 1992, a Tar Heel state duo (Nantz was born in Charlotte) saved the emotionally inspiring montage from the cutting room floor. The building still has thousands of people lingering, standing still for those three minutes,” he continued. “I’ve led to it on a number of occasions, Greg Gumbel now leads to it and it brings closure to a three week festival. The One Shining Moment of that year is embedded below: “Doug heard it and thought this could be our going off-the-air piece in the Final Four, and we’ve played it every year since,” Jim Nantz exclusively told The Sports Bank in 2014. Then CBS Sports Creative Director, the late Doug Towey, first decided to use “One Shining Moment” as a way to close the network’s broadcast of the 1987 Tournament. It’s astonishing that CBS was once dangerously close to giving it the axe. These days, you just can’t conclude the NCAA Tournament without it. If it weren’t for the combined efforts of broadcaster Jim Nantz and former UNC Tar Heel Pat Sullivan, the March Madness staple would have been cut entirely. When you watch the iconic “One Shining Moment” video montage a week from tonight, after the 2023 national title game, take a minute or two to think about how it nearly disappeared. We demand it.(Editor’s note: in honor of Final Four weekend coming, we are now re-publishing this exclusive that originally ran in 2014.) We don’t just look forward to it, we expect it. Every year, we wait and watch as the family album of that year’s tournament plays out to familiar rhythms. This ought to be the equivalent of one of those old Jazzercise videos that pop up on YouTube, where we all point and laugh and wonder how anyone ever took any of this seriously.Īnd yet. Sure, that 11-note intro is so white it ought to be sporting a quarter-zip at Augusta National, and its cliche-soaked lyrics make no damn sense whatsoever (“The ball is tipped, and there you are /You’re running for your life, you’re a shooting star”). It’s a wonder they didn’t just nuke the entire tournament from orbit to get rid of that stench.ġ987 saw the introduction of “One Shining Moment,” and its chewy synth and buck-naked, primary-colors emotion fit in well with the times. Here, for example, is last year’s version: But regardless of whether you’re a bandwagon-riding fan of Duke or your school has never even reached the damn NCAA tournament ( not that I'm impatient, oh no), there’s plenty to love about OSM. You could sit and watch all 30-plus versions of OSM one after the other - it’d take you about an hour and a half, and you’d be an emotional wreck by the end of it all - but which is the best? In large part, that depends on whether your team’s the one cutting down the nets at the end of the montage. The song got passed up the ladder at CBS Sports, eventually ending up as the backing track to the final moments of each year’s NCAA tournament. ![]() We wrote about the secret origins of “One Shining Moment” here a few years back, but let’s do this one more time: songwriter David Barrett, entranced with the basketball grace of Larry Bird, penned a treacly, uplifting anthem to his greatness back in 1986. It’s gloriously dorky and, as we’ll see later, so sacred that networks get cute with it at their peril. You know the tradition: before the last of the confetti hits the court on Monday night, before the winners of the NCAA tournament have even begun to cut down the nets, the highlight-reel recap rolls, a montage set to, of all songs, a cheeseball bit of ‘80s piffle. ![]()
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