Speaking of the Greensboro Coliseum, Billy Packer passed away yesterday.
Packer called many, many ACC Tournament games in that great venue. Hopefully the good peeps at UNC-G will do some sort of tribute to him on Saturday. He was one of the best to ever do it!
And…surely, to everyone’s surprise, FUBeAR has a Billy Packer story …actually several, but we’ll kinda roll ‘em up into 1 (or so)…
FUBeAR had the pleasure of working fairly closely with Billy Packer a few times in the early/mid 80’s when FUBeAR was doing some part-time grunt work for CBS Sports in NC, SC, and GA. Favorite job was doing his magnetic basketballs shots taken/shots made board that he would use in his halftime analysis…that ‘job’ put FUBeAR front row mid-court (and gettin’ paid to be there) for an NCAA Regional Final in ‘84.
Packer was great at what he did, was exceptionally nice to the dumba$$ little people around him (that was FUBeAR), and funny as all heck. Really, really liked him after expecting, before meeting him, that he would be a real jerk. That said, he was not very good at being politically correct.
Hopefully, FUBeAR won’t get killed by TV Sports media secret agents for sharing this info, but at CBS they used to do a ‘secret’ live 15-20 minute “show” that started about half an hour before an actual broadcast. They called it “On the Dish” and was only available in the headsets and in the truck…and to their colleagues that knew how to pull it down off ‘the dish.’ This was before really anyone had home dishes. Crazy intros describing the upcoming game with absolutely no regard for FCC regulations. Hilarious fake interviews of (usually fake) Players & (usually fake) Coaches also with absolutely no regard for FCC regulations. Interviews of real (female) cheerleaders that the cheerleaders were told might be used at some point on the broadcast and then consisted mostly of double entendre-type questions…and the cameraman armed with a 2nd, smaller “handi-cam” that he held down by his side and aimed & focused…well…not ever at her face. These became legendary and they tried to top the prior week every week. It was a hoot that would get every single one (which was ALL of the cast & crew) involved fired today.
Anyway, RIP Billy. You’re a legend!
NCAA MANUAL
20.10.1 ...intercollegiate athletics...competition in amateur athletics…
20.10.1.2 …maintaining a line of demarcation between student-athletes who participate in the Collegiate Model and athletes competing in the professional model
