Bob Lutz: Count CBS’ Jim Nantz among those who can’t wait for Broncos-Chiefs

Jim Nantz, who will be in CBS’ booth at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night for the Broncos-Chiefs AFC West game, could not think of an answer.

And if you’ve listened to Nantz call the Masters, the Final Four or the NFL, you know he’s not often stuck for words.

The question: “Is there a hole in your broadcasting career, something you haven’t done that you would like to do?”

Finally, Nantz, who celebrated his 30th year with CBS this week, spoke.

“Hey, I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he said. “I’ve been able to live out my childhood dream.”

In other words, Nantz doesn’t spend much time reflecting on what’s happened. He’s more about what’s happening next.

And next for Nantz is the big Broncos-Chiefs game, one he’s been looking forward to, he says, since the NFL schedule was released.

“I’m anxious to get there,” Nantz said Tuesday, when he was en route to the San Francisco airport – he lives just south of the city. “It’s an incredible site, a prime-time TV audience and the Chiefs are coming off a win on the road. I’m sure they’ll try to set another decibel record for noise inside (Arrowhead Stadium).”

Nantz and his color analyst, Phil Simms, are in their 12th year together. They meet for “breakfast, lunch and dinner” on the day before a broadcast, said Nantz, who was looking forward to poring over reams of data provided to him on his airplane trip to Kansas City.

Nantz joined CBS as a studio host for college football in 1985, when he was 26. He had to pinch himself.

“Ask any of my close childhood friends and they know that since I was a little boy, I wanted to grow up and work for CBS,” Nantz said. “I know that sounds like good copy, but it’s real. At the age of 11, I was completely smitten by the way CBS broadcast the NFL in the (Pat) Summerall-(Tom) Brookshire days. I was completely mesmerized by their voices and I wanted to be just like them. That desire had nothing to do with being on television and everything to do with telling the story of this spectacular event.”

Nantz is the lead golf and college basketball announcer for CBS, but it’s clear football is the sport he had his young eyes on as a future broadcaster.

“I love that adrenalin rush, which is what the fans are in it for,” Nantz said. “For me, football and college basketball are much more stimulating than golf. You’re in a stadium or an arena with a fever pitch. It’s sensory overload.”

Nantz said he’ll arrive at Arrowhead four hours before the game. There will be production meetings and more material to peruse.

And now this is a twice-a-week experience – Thursdays and Sundays.

“I noticed last year, in our first year of Thursday night games, that it was really difficult for me to go to sleep after a game,” Nantz said. “Doing two NFL games a week – it’s not like anybody else can weigh in on that experience because it’s never been done. And I absolutely relish every second of it.”

If you’re put off by Nantz’s enthusiasm and schmaltz on broadcasts – “Hello, friends” — perhaps it will help you to know none of it is feigned. He was the same way during a 30-minute phone interview when he touched on a variety of topics.

Including whether he thinks Denver quarterback Peyton Manning is over the hill.

“We (broadcast) his last game last season, the playoff loss to Indianapolis,” Nantz said. “And as I said at the top of the (Baltimore-Denver) broadcast last week, every fan is going to watch this game because they want to know what Peyton looks like. I think it’s one of those questions that is still out there and I don’t have the answers.”

If Manning is over the hill, the drop will only become steeper against a Chiefs defense that has a few amends to make with the quarterback who has picked it apart for years.

“This is going to be a tough game for Peyton,” Nantz said. “The Denver offense did not produce a single touchdown against Baltimore last week and now he’s going into arguably the very hardest place in the entire league to play.”

▪ On the determination of the New England Patriots after Deflategate: “If it’s possible to unite a team even more coming off a championship, that would do it. What they did against Pittsburgh last week didn’t surprise me. I saw a Patriots team that, every time you play them, will come up with a new way to beat you. It looks like business as usual for the Patriots.”

▪ On announcing golf: “It’s a real challenge and I’m not sure if a non-golf fan would understand the challenges. It puts a demand on an ability to tell a story because of the long stretches of little action and silence. For those of us who got into this industry to be storytellers, it puts a really great demand on your ability to tell a story and use the language.”

▪ On his greatest broadcasting influences: “Sitting in the chair once occupied by Pat Summerall – in two sports, really – doesn’t seem possible. I was so fortunate to get started in this industry at such a young age. I got to know all the legends behind the microphone: Jim McKay, Chris Schenkel, Curt Gowdy, Dick Enberg.”

Nantz told stories about each of the legendary broadcasters. But the most interesting story he told was about former colleague Jack Whitaker, who started his career at CBS in 1961 and, at 91, still golfs with Nantz occasionally.

“We played a few holes,” Nantz said. “I went to Philadelphia and spent a day with him at the end of August. It was great.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Count CBS’ Jim Nantz among those who can’t wait for Broncos-Chiefs."