A very good NCAA basketball tournament would be better with Billy Packer

    I miss Billy Packer. Packer was the best color analyst in basketball and maybe the best in sports. He knew the game. He was great at anticipating, and he was willing to criticize and praise.

   The best color analysts I'm aware of both work in the NFL -- Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman.

    They dress better than Billy did. 

     Packer was not a performer.  He was like a guy watching a game at home  with his friends, if he has friends. He didn't talk about having lunch with his good buddy the coach or his good buddy the athletic director or his good buddy the father of a player. He didn't put the people he talked about on a pedestal or try to curry their favor.

    His successor, Clark Kellogg, is all right. But Kellogg loves his phrases. He'll come up with a phrase, usually related to food, and apply it to the sport. He crams them into the telecast. A listener or co-worker or relative will tell him how good the phrase is and you get the impression Kellogg introduces himself by offering his hand and saying, "Squeeze the orange."

    Packer didn't offer clever sayings. He never got in the way. He just said what needed to be said.

 

 

 

    

 

Comments

[Stumpy]

I am not a big fan of Billy Packer, but compared to Clark Kellogg he is fantastic. If I have to hear about "spurtability" one more time, I think I'll squeeze my own orange!

[me]

Tom, please. Talking about how somebody dresses? I will go out on a limb and guess your closet is full of black mock turtlenecks, black ribbed t-shirts and cargo pants.

[critter]

Packer was a jerk that thought he new it all.Not missed at all.

[George Cox]

Packer, a pure blur-blood student of the game, was the best in the business. Not caught up in a popularity contest, Packer did his homework and was totally prepared. The pristine Carolina nation couldn't take his truths. And remember, he and Bones McKinney were pioneers at the craft.
I miss Billy Packer.
"They won it (NC State's famous finish I '83) and "this game is over (Kansas early rout over UNC) are classic sound bites.

[Panthers89]

The best thing about the tournament is no Billy Packer! Hes annoying and Mr Know-it-all. Glad hes gone. I do enjoy his son on the radio though!

[Stankonya]

billy fo sho toms. he could ball like my boy foodat.

[Steve]

Billy was old ACC and I miss him too.

[iftapro]

He could be obnoxious but no one understood the game better and anticipated plays with more insight.

[Robert]

Come on Tom! You cannot be serious. Kellog is the absolute worst ever. He likes to make up big words and you are correct about his phrases. (How the network missed on getting Bilas for that job is a mystery)

BUT Packer...arrogant, ACC homer, condecending, rude....just a few words to describe a very small man. I had to work with him years ago (in a different dept.). NOBODY could stand being around him. His own kid isn't real crazy about him.

[Fred Clauhs]

I miss Billy, at least when he called the game, I felt like I learned more about the game. If I want to be entertained I will watch Cops or Jerry Springer.

[Rob]

You have got to be kidding me, you smoking something!!! I was so glad when he left, I celebrated the fact that there would be someone else calling the games. Thanks god he retired and lets hope it stays that way.......

[EJ]

sorry packer your days have gone.. Nobody wants to hear you anymore. The sense of entitlement from these guys is so funny. NO you are not a part of it. Listen to Charles Barkley...lol

[tom mc]

I like Packer, too. But you can't dress him up, even in a tux he looks like a tee shirt, gym shorts and a jock strap.
And as a player and defensive specialist at Wake Forest that is who he was.
Whoever said Bilas is 'tops' is correct.

[McKleeve]

I agree about Kellogg, although I've learned to tolerate him. He's almost as bad as Raftery. I mostly agree about Packer, too, although he was often a jerk, he was honest in his opinions. About the only analysts that I feel I learn from today are Bilas and Dan Bonner. Bonner is honest, criticizes, analyzes the game and explains what's happening on the court at the time, not how the coach is so all that. He comes off as friendly and nice. Packer without the attitude.

[John]

He must have been great. With all the comments, you either love or hate him.

[ACCfanforlife]

I couldn't stand Packer. IMHO he did very little outside of second-guessing everything that happened on the court...."he should have done this..." Just a jerk. If he was the announcer (this is ACC mostly), I'd turn down the volume on the TV and listen to the radio coverage. I liked his sidekick Jim Thacker though.

[bluedevil]

http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/03/30/article/krzyzewski_former_players_comments_insulting

[Nate]

Everyone thought Packer hated their team for good reason - all his comments were negative. After a spectacular dunk, Billy would tell everyone about the poor defense, after a great block he'd tell us how the offensive player should have shot differently. He was so cynical and negative I often wondered why he did it.

[Mpls Pete]

Tom, I miss Billy Packer as much as I miss the 4 corners offense. They were made for each other and good riddance to both

[TarHeelJohn]

I liked Packer very much. When was the last time we had a color analyst who actually paid attention to the ebbs and flow of the game, of critical posessions, or strategies going into timeouts? Dickie V just barely seems to realize that there is a game going on, until a big dunk. Packer made the final moments of NCAA Championships, especially if the game was close, all the more exciting. Wish he was back!

[Marc]

Its funny, I really didn't even notice the guy until he said something negative, which was most of the time. I have a way of tuning commentators out and watching and feeling the game and enjoying without all the side bars. If you do that you tend to overlook the irrelevance going on around you..

[annnort]

Thank goodness Packer is gone!! He was the WORST announcer I ever heard! His opinionated talk was awful. He is not missed at my house.

[Spanky Valez]

Billy was great for so long...and then his massive ego took over and he spent his last several years telling us how much smarter he was than us. His sanctimonious monologues became too tedious to listen too. As evidenced by the HBO Gumbel show last night, he still is enamored of the sound of his own voice...even if it means that nobody else gets to speak.

Bilas, who has always seemed like such a great guy, is edging precariously close to the edge of Packerism by his unwillingness to budge on what everyone else sees as so obvious, that VCU has proven its worth to this NCAA Tournament. His entrenched, "I had it right and still do" mentality reeks of Billy at his worst.

[George Marischen]

I agree with some of your comments about todays' announcers. I used to love Dick Vitale, now all he does is kiss the butts of anyone who he thinks will favor him. He should change his name to Duke Vitale. Packer was overly critical and predictable. I am glad he is gone. Kellogg stinks and tries too hard to be funny or cool instead of adding insight into the strategy of the game. Clark does not seem too smart. I miss Dick Enberg, he knew how to push the right buttons of an analyst for comments. Jay Bilas seems to be the best and most impartial analyst in the college basketball media today.

[IsraelHands]

Oh for the Packer and Thacker days. That was before Billy's ego had ballooned to monstrous proportions. Kellogg is awful, last weekend he jabbered away so much that he overwhelmed the play by play and all it was was Kellogg, gums flapping, mindless
yapping, thank God the screen had time and score aspects or you'd never have known what was happening.