Growing up in an era when college football was usually confined to one Saturday TV game per week, I cut my teeth on the guys who called the games on radio.

Growing up in Alabama I listened to John Forney, who was the voice of the Alabama Crimson Tide, while Gary Sanders did play-by-play for Auburn. But every now and then you’d take the old transistor radio outside and manipulate the knob with your thumb, occasionally picking up other games and other announcers.

I never understood how I could easily find Spanish language channels, or how a station in St. Louis or New Orleans could come in so clearly when some in my own state were full of static and garble.

But now and again Larry Munson’s gravely tones would fade in for a few minutes, and I was able to listen to a legend.

All that was lost on me at the time, of course. When most of your Saturdays are spent tuning in to the Tide and Tigers the rest of the headless voices seem almost alien. But even then Munson had that certain something, a style and approach that could make a game I had little interest in seem interesting, despite the static that interfered with his delivery and then muted him completely.

I didn’t get to hear him urge Lindsay Scott to run as it happened in the famous Georgia-Florida showdown of 1980, although thanks to YouTube and college football highlight shows I can listen to it now.

And when I came to the Upstate in 2006 it wasn’t long before I was searching the dial in search of Munson, finally finding him and hearing him in the twilight of his career.

In the modern era it’s easy to forget just how talented these guys are. Some folks will still turn the radio on and the TV volume off when watching their favorite team play, but gone are the days when radio was often the only link you had to the gridiron squad you rooted for.

Since most games are now televised, the voice of University U. is sometimes only heard in the car while we make a mad dash to the store to get more snacks before the second half starts.

Forney passed away several years ago, and frankly it was several years before Alabama football sounded the same to me.

And as good as the current team on Georgia broadcasts is, knowing the Munson era is over leaves a huge void. He had already prepared us by semi-retiring, working only Bulldogs home games. But when he hung up the headset for good this week, it marked a bittersweet passing of a glorious era.

Longtime UGA fans are lucky to have had him as their radio companion for so many seasons. And I’m lucky that I finally got a chance to hear him bark about his beloved Dawgs — without all the static.