We are quickly approaching arguably the greatest sports weekend of the year: the first weekend of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. But improbable upsets and last-second buzzer beaters are not the reasons that make me the most excited about the upcoming tournament.
It's CBS announcer Gus Johnson.
Because there are sports broadcast announcers, and then there's Gus Johnson. He infuses more emotion into each and every broadcast than any other announcer out there, regardless of the sport. The man can make anything exciting. If he were announcing a race between two people to fold 100 napkins the fastest, and Gus Johnson was announcing, I would watch.
Johnson has several "Gus Johnson-isms" that make his style unique. He's probably best know for his "Rise and Fire" phrase. When a player hits the shot, Johnson will routinely cap the phrase with a raw and powerful "PUUUUUUURE." What I love about Johnson is how he build emotion by simply dragging out the pronunciation of words. A point guard does not shoot a "runner." When Gus Johnson is announcing, it's pronounced "runnneRRRRRRR!!!!" These things and more in the following stellar video.
Then there's his innate ability to unleash these screams--screams that only he can pull off when a game has reached its climactic moment. Johnson's "WOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!" or "OHHHHHHH!!!!!" are unmatched. Where he musters this ability to put his raw emotion into each game is beyond me, but that's why I love listening to him.
So fill out your brackets, pick your upsets and enjoy the madness. But when your bracket falls apart because your 12-seed didn't make it to the sweet sixteen, watch a game with Gus Johnson announcing and you won't care one bit.
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