![]() ![]() ![]() Larry Bird highlights were playing on the barroom TV. “She was more beautiful than Helen of Troy,” Barrett says. He couldn’t help but notice the waitress next to him. In 1986, after finishing a gig at the Varsity Inn in East Lansing, Michigan, David Barrett - who a few months later would be described in a CBS press release as a “modestly successful club singer” - took a seat at the bar. Like for so many endeavors, its inspiration came in a bar. How did this song become the soundtrack of March Madness? The 2016 montage, which will run on TBS for the first time, will mark the 30th straight year it has aired (CBS aired the prior 29 editions). Last year over 10 million people watched “One Shining Moment” on CBS. Players dream of appearing in it, and fans can’t get enough of it. ![]() For three decades, “One Shining Moment” has followed the men’s national title game: with keyboards, trumpet filigrees and R&B stars like Pendergrass and Luther Vandross crooning lyrics such as “And when it’s done/win or lose/you always did your best/cause inside you knew,” the tune doesn’t skimp on the schmaltz. In most sports, after a championship game TV viewers flip the channel or head to bed. At least my girlfriend at the time, who also grew up loving college hoops - and the song - said she was impressed. Basically, I was an extra: not exactly the way I dreamed of appearing in “One Shining Moment” as a kid. I was a little-used reserve on that team, and was in the shot for a blip, wearing my warmup. “The ball is tipped,” sang a wistful Teddy Pendergrass, “And there you are…”Īnd there I was, about a minute into the montage, to the left of the screen, running off the Princeton bench after the Tigers upset UCLA in the first round of the 1996 tournament. First, I heard the familiar keyboards: “Ding ding, ding ding, ding ding ding ding ding, ding ding, ding ding.” Then the trumpet blare: “BA BA BA BA BAAAAA!” A few seconds later, the lyrics begin. As per custom, I stayed up to watch “One Shining Moment,” the roughly three-minute highlight montage of the just-ended NCAA tournament set to an 80s ballad of the same name. Kentucky had just beaten Syracuse in the national championship game. I remember exactly where I saw it: in a dorm room, late one April Monday night, 20 years ago. ![]()
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