Billy Packer Doesn't Care How You Remember His Career

With blogs and message boards across this great land celebrating CBS replacing Billy Packer, there comes time to reflect. I mean, how will Packer be remembered?

Watch the video above and he'll tell you "I don't have any interest of what people think about me". Noble, but it is the exact kind of thing that makes him hated.

As someone who grew up in Charlotte and in ACC country, I saw a lot of Packer since he did many conference games on local TV (he may still). I must admit that I don't "hate" him as much as others do ... but he isn't what I'd call one of my favorite announcers.

Like commenters have been saying, he has forgotton more basketball than many of us remember and he does see things that some of us don't. Despite his take on the contrary, it is his job to entertain us.

The problem I've had with him (as many others) is his smugness of it all. He could tell you the sky is yellow and take that comment with him to the grave. He did so when he dropped the shorter f-word on the Charlie Rose show, when he criticized the amounts of mid-majors making the tournament (the same year George Mason made it to the Final Four), when he prematurely called the Kansas-UNC game "over" just 13 minutes into the game or his call on the Tyler Hansbrough foul.

That final one has been my problem. I'd have given Packer a pass on the initial call since it happened so fast and he made the comment. However, how in the world can you sit there and repeatedly watch those replays and still say "there is no question" it wasn't a flagrant foul? Then he has the cojones to complain that the referees are "taking too long" with the call as partner Jim Nantz is explaining that they were still cleaning blood off the floor.

In Packer's defense, he will have a legacy of work behind him since he did do the calls of the last 30-something NCAA Final Fours and title games. So replays of Magic vs Bird, Lorenzon Charles "he won it on a dunk" call, the Villanova upset, Webber's timeout, "Simon says: championship" and some famous shots by Michael Jordan, Keith Smart and Mario Chalmers will be played on forever.