Written by the AP at New York Times
Brent Musburger is calling it a career at ESPN after being the play-by-play man in the booth at sporting events enjoyed by millions of Americans, most prominently when he was the lead voice for CBS Sports in the 1980s.
Musburger, who is 77, said he was leaving active sportscasting to help his family get a sports handicapping business started and to use some of the millions of airline miles he has earned for recreational travel.
His last game will be the Kentucky-Georgia men’s basketball game Tuesday night. That takes him back to Rupp Arena, where he called Villanova’s upset over Georgetown in the final of the N.C.A.A. tournament in 1985.
Musburger and ESPN said his comments about the Oklahoma football player Joe Mixon that were criticized as insensitive during the Sugar Bowl this month had nothing to do with his exit. On the broadcast, Musburger said that he hoped Mixon, who had been suspended for a year after punching a woman and breaking her jaw, would make the most of his second chance. He did not initially talk about Mixon’s victim.
A former sportswriter, Musburger’s broadcast fame took off through his work on “N.F.L. Today,” the pro football pregame show. He broadcast the N.B.A., college basketball, the Masters golf tournament and tennis — most of CBS’s marquee events.
He was behind the mike for one of college football’s most memorable plays, Doug Flutie’s “Hail Mary” pass that beat Miami for Boston College in 1984. He confessed to Flutie later that it took him awhile to identify Gerard Phelan, Flutie’s roommate, as the receiver of that pass — and Flutie told him he didn’t know, either, until he had run off the field.
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