Billy Packer Departure from CBS Gives College Basketball Fans Early Christmas Present

When Billy Packer was at NBC, veteran play by play man Dick Enberg and colorful color man Al McGuire made Packer somewhat bearable. Enberg often served as the referee in seemingly constant arguments between colorless Billy Packer and the flamboyant New Yorker McGuire. For a washout coach at Wake Forest like Billy Packer to argue strategy with a Hall of Fame coach with a national championship under his belt like Al McGuire just never made sense to me, even as a teenager at that time.

A few years later, when CBS made Billy Packer the "color man" upon obtaining the broadcast rights to the NCAA Tournament, making CBS a player in college hoops, I and many other fans groaned, knowing that we were in for incessant "just lay it off the glass" type comments any time a player soared in for a dunk.That and Billy Packer's obvious bias toward the Atlantic Coast Conference, it's players and coaches, led me many times to turn the sound down on the television and listen on the radio, as long as it wasn't Marv Albert calling the game.

The first thing I think of when I think of Billy Packer (reluctantly) is when the colorless drone Packer asked former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson a resoundingly dumb question after the Hogs'semifinal win over Arizona, putting Arkansas in the national championship game in 1994. Either that or Billy Packer stated the obvious as he was famous for doing, and the mercurial Richardson, who had about as much use for Packer as he had for the "four corners offense" replied "a blind man could see that, Billy". It seems Packer had criticized Nolan's coaching abilities on a few occasions, and for anyone who knows anything about Nolan Richardson, even the slightest slight could draw Nolan's ire.

I would have preferred as a Razorback fan that our coach had not been quite so blunt, but if anyone ever had such a tirade coming, it was Billy Packer. Packer often was proven wrong in his comments on the NCAA Tournament selection show. Many times over the years, a team Packer "dissed" made the Final Four or beat one of his beloved ACC teams.

Clark Kellogg, on the other hand, if he has a bias, it is unable to detect by most of us at home. Clark Kellogg is clear, concise and usually sprinkles his comments with a little color unlike the bland Billy Packer. It is obvious that Kellogg has done his homework of studying the teams without shilling for the ACC, especially Duke, like Packer and Seth whats-his-name. The ACC is a good league with a great history, but has been very mediocre in recent years for the most part, other than Duke and UNC, but to hear the tubthumpers for the league such as Billy Packer, you'd think the league was packed with powerful teams.

Now, if we could just get rid of one of the many carnival-barkers of ESPN, Dick "Dookie V" Vitale, college basketball fans who want some color commentary without the contant shouting of Vitale would have a very Merry Christmas 2008 indeed.