Whether you believe him or not, Kevin Harlan doesn’t think he’s had his signature call quite yet.
In the 2019 NFL season, Harlan did play-by-play commentary for two games simultaneously in Week 17, which had playoff implications. He also made a great call when Lamar Jackson broke some ankles during Week 10 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
“Here’s a second down and three, Jackson takes it himself. Look at him turn back and forth…ohhhhh, he broke his ankles! Now he’s getting an entourage and he’s got a touchdown. He is Houdini! What a play; 47-yard touchdown run by the magical quarterback Lamar Jackson.”
And if you need a more recent example, Harlan nearly fell out of his chair during Furman’s dramatic win over Virginia in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
“DID WE JUST SEE WHAT WE THINK WE JUST SAW?!”
Kevin Harlan nearly FELL OUT OF HIS CHAIR. Dan Bonner and @realStanVG were STUNNED.
The crew’s reaction to Furman’s dramatic win over Virginia was incredible. pic.twitter.com/Jym88PALq8
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 20, 2023
Harlan was asked if he’s had a signature call, perhaps not of that magnitude as some of the more notable ones, but more a career-defining moment, during a recent appearance on the What the Football with Suzy Shuster and Amy Trask podcast.
“I don’t know that I’ve had it yet, quite frankly,” Harlan said with a brief pause. “I’d like to think it is still ahead of me. It’s like the stone cutter, right? The stone cutter living in a small village in Russia is going down the road, and this gigantic boulder has now appeared and blocked off the road.”
“And so he and then everybody in the village gets the hammer and a chisel and begin to bang at that boulder in the road. It finally cracks on the 10,000th bang of that hammer on the chisel. But it wasn’t that 9,999th hit that broke it; it was the 9,998 hits before it.”
“And I’d like to think that all these games — that I’ve been so fortunate to do — will lead me to that moment where there is that great moment on the field or on the floor that I’m able to capture it. I think waiting for that moment, or hoping it comes, or being ready when it comes, will be maybe my most memorable.”
“I’ve done so many games, quite frankly, that kind of blend together. Some have stuck because social media has made them stick. But, I guess in my heart, I’d like to think that there’s this call coming up that all those hits of my hammer on that chisel on that stone will be the one that finally breaks the stone in half, and that will be the one that all the plays that I’ve done in all these games led to that call that made that stone split.”
Harlan feels like he hasn’t reached his peak yet and compares his career to a stone cutter chipping away at a boulder. Each game is a “bang of the hammer” that brings him closer to a defining moment, a “great moment on the field” that will be his most memorable.
He believes that all his previous work — even the less notable games — has been crucial in shaping him and preparing him for the eventual breakthrough. So, while Harlan may not have found his “stone-splitting” moment just yet, his unwavering belief in its arrival promises more incredible calls.
