NANTZ’S MOMENT
UH alumnus has ties to program, but CBS broadcaster promises to also give Baylor its due
» UH alum pledges to call Saturday’s game down the middle.
Jim Nantz was at a reception celebrating the 2014 debut of the University of Houston’s football stadium — specifically, the stadium press box named in honor of his mother, Doris Nantz — when he was approached by Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars’ new basketball coach.
Nantz had known Sampson from his years calling the NCAA Tournament, but this was a conversation unlike any other. It featured a bold promise that, seven years later, is on the verge of becoming reality.
“Kelvin said, ‘Jim, I’m fully aware of how much you love this basketball program and how it’s been a part of your life and all you’ve done for the program. I know it’s important to you,’ ” Nantz said.
He said Sampson continued, “I want to tell you something. I promise you that I am going to take this program back to the Final Four, and we are going to win a championship.”
And now it’s 2021, and Nantz will be courtside with Grant Hill and Bill Raftery when CBS airs the NCAA Tournament semifinal game Saturday in Indianapolis between the Houston Cougars and Baylor Bears, with the winner moving on to Monday night’s championship game.
“Kelvin has lived up to his promise,” Nantz said. “He gave me his word. He had such an intense look when he said. ‘We are going to take this program back to the Final Four.’ And here we are.”
The use of the word “we,” by the way, is all inclusive. Nantz pledges that old school ties will not play a role in Saturday’s telecast.
Even though Nantz’s connection to UH basketball dates to his days as a student, working as the public address announcer at Hofheinz Pavilion and hosting coach Guy V. Lewis’ weekly television show from 1979 through 1981, he said he will offer equal praise and attention to the Bears and Cougars on Saturday.
“I know how to call a game down the middle,” he said. “I have tremendous respect for (Baylor coach) Scott Drew, the Baylor people and their athletic director (former Houston AD Mack Rhoades).
“The Baylor nation has nothing to fear. (Raftery) or Grant may make an allusion to UH being my alma mater, but I have nothing but respect for Baylor. They will get equal love.”
Nantz has yet to call a Houston game in the Tournament this year but had Baylor’s game against Arkansas on Monday night and was amazed by the fast pace of the Bears’ offense.
“It was shocking to see the movement on the floor, the quickness. They’re a blur,” he said. “Everything moves, and it’s so coordinated. It’s amazing to watch. They’re so good.
“And then you’ve got Houston with its stifling defense and ability to dictate these ballgames because they are able to take teams out of their game. Can they do that with Baylor and show down that quickness and speed and efficiency?”
While styles of play differ, Baylor and Houston have enjoyed similar revivals under Drew and Sampson, both of whom have rebuilt programs that were far from Final Four material.
“Scott Drew’s rebuild at Baylor may be the greatest ever in college basketball,” Nantz said. “I know that sounds like a lot, but Baylor had no program when he took over. Now they’ve been one of the most consistent for quite a while. I’m blown away with how they play in sync.”
While Nantz has not called any of UH’s Tournament games, he was on hand Monday night for the first half of the Cougars’ regional final against Oregon State before walking to the other end of Lucas Oil Stadium to prepare for the Baylor-Arkansas game.
“As we were going through the graphics, I glanced at a monitor and saw that the (UH) game was getting tight,” Nantz said.
“I asked our producer, Mark Wolf, when he needed me next, and he said I had 20 minutes.”
Nantz hurried to the other side of the stadium and sat down as Oregon State hit a 3-pointer to tie the game.
“I started having flashbacks,” he said, “It was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ We’ve had enough heartbreaks with the (1979) Cotton Bowl against Notre Dame or the national championship game against North Carolina State.
“Thankfully, for we Houston faithful, the game turned around. I took a video of the team celebrating and then hightailed it back. They were looking for me, but I made it back on time, we did the game, and I was riding high.”
After working the Baylor-Arkansas game, Nantz flew Tuesday morning to Houston, where he joined family members in celebrating his mother’s 90th birthday. He was off to Indianapolis on Thursday and will be holed up in his hotel room until he’s cleared to be courtside Saturday.
Of course, Nantz is hardly the only broadcaster who has had an off-air rooting interest over the years in NCAA Tournament action. The business is lousy with Syracuse graduates who annually follow the progress of the Orange under coach Jim Boeheim, and other schools have their adherents mikeside as well.
Nantz, though, will stack up his undergraduate ties to the Cougars to those of any of his counterparts from other schools. He began working with the Cougars basketball team while playing golf for UH and continued after he left the golf team through graduation in 1981.
In 1983, while working in Salt Lake City, he rode with the Cougars to The Pit in Albuquerque for the fateful game with North Carolina State, sat near the CBS booth and watched Brent Musburger rehearse the pregame show and then rode back with the team in silence after the Cougars lost in a memorable upset.
He represented Lewis when the longtime coach was selected for induction into the Naismith National Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, and he collaborated with former suitemates Blaine McAlister and Fred Couples to fund UH’s first endowed basketball scholarship.
This year, the Three Amigos scholarship is held by Marcus Sasser, who will be a key element in UH’s drive for a long-awaited national title.
If it happens for UH, you’ll hear about it first from Nantz. But if it doesn’t, he’s proud of the Cougars’ accomplishments this season.
“The University of Houston is going to take on a great basketball program in Baylor,” he said. “Who knows who is going to win. Anyone who is there has a chance.
“But this has been a massive achievement, whatever happens. Anyone who walks away feeling as if it’s anything less doesn’t understand how far (UH) has come and what it has taken to get there.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be truly happy for whichever team wins to represent the state of Texas on Monday night.”