Lundquist dives into his farewell season

Verne Lundquist announced early this year that this would be his last doing SEC games on CBS. The first assignment of his farewell season will be UCLA at Texas A&M on Sept. 3.

NEW YORK >> Verne Lundquist recently returned from a Scandinavian summer vacation to find an email with 309 pages of stories on Texas A&M and UCLA. As the 76-year-old play-by-play man gets set for his 17th and final season as the voice of Southeastern Conference football on CBS, he is happily diving into one of his favorite parts of the job.

“I’m going to miss the preparation as much as anything,” Lundquist said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “You can’t short-cut it. If you do you’ll get found out.”

Lundquist announced early this year that this would be his last doing SEC games on CBS. The first assignment of his farewell season will be Bruins at Aggies on Sept. 3.

“There’s a symmetry to all this. We’re going to open the season in College Station (Texas), which is 100 miles due east of where I began my broadcasting career, four days shy of 53 years ago,” said Lundquist, whose first job was in Austin, Texas. “I first looked into a camera and got paid for it when I spoke on Aug. 31, 1963.”