Jim Nantz, 63, announced last fall that the 2023 Final Four at NRG Stadium would be his final run through the NCAA Tournament.After more than 40 years in capacities ranging from student assistant to studio host to play by play announcer, Jim Nantz’s Road to the Final Four will come to an end in the city where his career began.
“One year when I was doing the studio show, Magic Johnson sat on the set with me,” Nantz said. “I was still a young guy, not quite 30, and I turned to Magic and said, ‘Do you ever have these feelings like, I can’t believe I’m here at the Final Four, chasing my dream?’The dream began quietly, during Nantz’s senior year at the University of Houston in 1981. As the host of UH coach Guy V.
“I remember walking off the court at halftime stride with Rob, and he took off the tape he had wrapped around his wrist,” Nantz said. “He was a good 30 feet from a garbage can by the locker room door and shot it, and it went in. He turned to me and said, ‘Now I make a shot.’” UH lost that championship game in heartbreaking fashion to North Carolina State and, a year later, to Georgetown in Olajuwon’s final season at UH. By then, Nantz had taken another step in his rise from student public address announcer at Hofheinz Pavilion to staff member at CBS Sports,
“He watched me go through all the elements of the show, and when there was a break, I would go over and tell him what we were doing,” he said. “When the four teams were done practicing, I stepped off the platform and gave my dad a big hug, and he drove the 240 miles back to Houston.