Jim Nantz And Me

I've always been a huge fan of Jim Nantz. I love how he starts every telecast with "Hello friends....." I love how he turns every event he covers into the sappiest event in the world. He just blankets The Masters with a batch of sweet sugary announcing syrup, to the point that even Alex once called it "kind of gay." I prefer to look at it as "a tradition unlike any other."

And I especially love his cheesy one-liners as the final seconds are ticking off the clock, or as the putt drops in the 18th hole on Sunday. Did anyone hear Nantz on the Simmons podcast last week, when he claimed that he rarely, if ever, comes up with those one-liners in advance? That was a lie on par with Bill Clinton claiming he never had relations with Monica Lewinsky. Take a look at some of these little gems and tell me they were spur of the moment cliches:

"You gotta believe, folks, because just when everyone says you can't, you can, and UCONN has won the national championship!"

"It started in March, ended in April, and belonged to May!"

"Y.E. Yes!!! Y.E. Yang has won the PGA Championship!"

Unbelievable. I mean, Nantz is the one who inspired the perpetually cranky Billy Packer to deliver the "Simon says: Championship" line in 1997, maybe the best one of all. Don't disrespect us like that, Jimmy.

All blatant lies aside, Jim Nantz is my boy. But things took an interesting turn last night, when I bolted upright in bed at about 4 am, being awoken by a dream where I was the nanny for Jim Nantz and his family. That's right, the nanny. I think I've been spending too much time peeping elementary school playgrounds again. And the dream was getting intense, to the point where after I woke up, I was depressed for like 10 minutes once I realized it wasn't real. In the dream, I had been thoroughly enjoying the daily in-depth sports conversations Jimbo and I had been having, as well as the free tickets to the Masters, Final Four, and Super Bowl.

So now I'm back to living my life as a regular person. I can only hope that one day I meet Nantz, and he greets me with a "The dream is still alive......how would you like to be our nanny?" Or maybe drops a "A house with two Jim's, a win for the family!" What about "You may not have any experience, but I'm gonna go out on a Jim here, and hire you to be our nanny!"

Those all sucked, but you get the idea.

Also, why do all my weirdest dreams happen on Sunday night? Most of them end up like this, and then I struggle to sleep the rest the night. Monday mornings are bad enough as it is without being depressed about not being the caretaker of the Nantz family.