The Last Shining Moment

Conference tournaments are in full swing, and March Madness is right around the corner. Of course, tragedy gets in the way, and today we receive the sad news that Doug Towey has died.

Who is Doug Towey, you ask? Well, he was the creative director at CBS that chose to create a montage of the NCAA Tournament during the closing credits of the final game. And the song he chose to soundtrack the clips? Everyone together......"One Shining Moment."

Now, my love (obsession) for this yearly tradition has been well documented on this site. So it's no surprise that I'm taking this news rather harshly (almost as bad as I'm taking this news).

And so, to honor Towey, I've taken the liberty of jotting down some highlights from his very 1st montage in 1987 (the clips begin around 1:50).

• First, I love that even in its first year, they chose a literal approach to the clip organization (show a ball being tipped when he sings "the ball is tipped"!). It was a precursor to all of those literal music videos we're seeing on youtube today.
• Is that Kevin Durant at the 2:20 mark? Did Doug Towey create LOST? Is Kevin Durant a time-traveling smoke monster?
• What school is APSU?
• Don't miss the Santa Clara "almost kiss" at 2:53
• Boeheim gets a Gatorade shower! I thought the Celtics were the first to do that on a basketball court. I need to go change that wikipedia entry.
• I love the juxtaposition of how Bob Knight gets pissed and Dean Smith gets pissy at 3:05

I'm sure this won't be the last you hear from me on this topic, so I'll end with an interesting tidbit regarding the song's writer, David Barrett.....he wrote, trying to explain to a girl how awesome Larry Bird is. That sounds about right.