Larry Munson - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Munson attended Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and Minnesota State University Moorhead. While at MSUM, he played basketball as a center and guard and football as an end and tackle.

Munson served as a United States Army medic in an Army Hospital during World War II. Upon leaving the military, he spent all $200 of his mustering-out pay to enroll in a Minneapolis radio broadcasting school. His first job was at a Minneapolis arena announcing the names of boxers and wrestlers for $15 a week.

After an on-air job at the KDLR AM radio station in Devils Lake, North Dakota, Munson moved on to AM radio station KFBC in Cheyenne, Wyoming, as a sports reporter in 1946. At KFBC, Munson met and became friends with co-worker Curt Gowdy. At that time, Gowdy was also the football announcer for the Wyoming Cowboys. Later in 1946, Gowdy took a job in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, as the announcer for a minor league baseball team and successfully recommended Munson as his replacement for the Wyoming Cowboys job. When Gowdy became a New York Yankees announcer in 1948, he recommended Munson again to replace him in Oklahoma City.

Munson broadcast in Oklahoma until 1952 when he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for an announcing job with the Nashville Vols minor league baseball team on AM radio station WKDA. During the baseball off-season, Munson convinced local Nashville radio station WSM (AM) to broadcast Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball games with himself as the announcer. The basketball broadcasts were immediately successful, and WSM added Vanderbilt Commodores football games to its schedule as well with Munson as the broadcaster. Munson also created a television show about hunting and fishing called The Rod & Gun Club on a local Nashville station.

In 1966, the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team hired Munson as part of their initial broadcast team, the franchise having moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta.

The first year the Braves were in Atlanta, the television broadcasts were on WSB-TV. An occasional guest color commentator was former major leaguer Dizzy Dean. One memorable Friday night during a rain delay, Dean warbled several verses of the Wabash Cannonball and purchased peanuts from a vendor in the stands, much to Munson's on-air amusement.

In March 1966, Munson was in West Palm Beach, Florida, for the Braves' spring training and read in the Atlanta Journal that Georgia Bulldogs football radio announcer Ed Thilenius was resigning to become a broadcaster for the new Atlanta Falcons National Football League franchise. The next day, Munson called Georgia athletics director Joel Eaves to express his interest in the Georgia job, and Munson was hired shortly thereafter. Athens radio station WRFC held the broadcast contract and was the parent station for the Georgia Bulldogs. After announcing Braves games for the first two months of the baseball season, Munson returned to Nashville in June 1966 to continue The Rod & Gun Club and prepare for his new role with the Bulldogs. For many years after joining the University of Georgia broadcasts, Munson would make the commute to Athens, Georgia for the weekend football games from his home in Nashville so that he could continue producing The Rod & Gun Club during the week. His engineer for many years was L.H. Christian, the owner of WRFC radio, who ran the audio board out of personal interest and for fun; Christian was sometimes joined by Larry Melear or Everett Langford as engineer for the sports broadcasts. Munson continued to live in Nashville until 1978 when he moved to metro Atlanta, Georgia, after joining the Georgia Radio Network as a reporter. Munson moved to Athens in 1997. On September 22, 2008, Larry announced his retirement from being the play-by-play announcer for the University of Georgia Bulldogs.