Today the sports announcing world lost a great one; Don Meredith passed away at the age of 72. Meredith was one of the original Monday Night Football Announcers along with Howard Cosell and Keith Jackson. Meredith joined Monday Night Football after a great career as the Dallas Cowboys QB where he was just the second Cowboy inducted into their Ring of Honor. Meredith’s signature call was probably him serenading the audience with Willie Nelson’s “turn out the lights” when it looked as if the games outcome had been decided. Any announcer singing Willie Nelson on the air is quite all right with me.

Don retired from the booth in 1984 which was a little bit before my time. There’s a lot of great tributes to him floating around this series of tubes that have more detail on why he was such a beloved announcer and person. Here’s some of them.

ESPN
CNN
TV Squad
CNNSI
CBS

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