It was a September Saturday in 1996, and Brian Movalson was in a broadcast booth in Provo, Utah, looking live at BYU's Cougar Stadium below.

To Movalson's right stood ABC play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger, who awaited the day's BYU vs. Texas A&M college football game with a practiced calm. At this point, Musburger was already one of the most recognizable figures in sports, a former sportswriter whose foray into broadcasting made his voice the soundtrack to some of sports' most memorable moments since the 1970s. He called Doug Flutie's "Hail Mary" touchdown pass to lift Boston College over Miami in 1984. As a star at CBS, he called NBA Finals, the Masters golf tournament, numerous Final Fours in college basketball and hosted "NFL Today," the 1970s CBS show that was the forerunner to the Sunday NFL studio show as we now know it.

If Musburger held gravitas, the 28-year-old Movalson, meanwhile, gripped only a pair of binoculars.

It was just Texas A&M and BYU. And Movalson's job as a "spotter" was just to deliver Musburger the names of the game's tacklers, ballcarriers and substitutions. But if felt bigger to Movalson, and not just because it was his first game by Musburger's side at ABC of what became a personal friendship and professional relationship spanning two decades, 19 Rose Bowls and countless calls of Musburger's signature introduction to a broadcast: "You are looking live!"

"Brent had an uncanny ability to make every game a big game, no matter where we were," Movalson said this week. "I was just the guy in the passenger seat along for one heck of a ride."

Movalson, 48, who has lived in Eugene since 2010 as an executive with IMG College, whose business includes Oregon's broadcast rights, was in Lexington, Kentucky, on Tuesday when that ride came to an end.

Musburger's call of Kentucky's overtime win against Georgia -- "I told Brent, 'You couldn't have gone out in regulation!'" -- was his last before retirement, and came in the same Rupp Arena where he called the classic NCAA Tournament final between Villanova and Georgetown 32 years earlier.

Movalson and his wife, Katherine, attended as a surprise to Musburger. When Musburger spotted them in the stands afterward, he uttered the nickname that's stuck with his longtime spotter since 1996: "Mov!"

"Back then as we were growing up in the '70s and '80s, there wasn't the plethora of sports television," Movalson said. "ESPN was in its infancy and Brent was always 'that guy.' People would sit around and watch "NFL Today," and he'd say 'you are looking live.'

"It will be different not having big-game Brent out there."

He is not exiting the airwaves altogether.

Brian Movalson (far right) worked as a spotter alongside broadcaster Brent Musburger (center) for more than 14 years.Courtesy Brian Movalson 

Musburger, who never shied from referencing how the stakes of a game might resonate with bettors, not just fans, is joining the Vegas Stats & Information Network, which the Las Vegas Review-Journal dubbed "the first multichannel network dedicated to sports gambling," as a host and managing editor. Musburger will host a daily show Thursdays through Mondays, which will be carried on Sirius XM radio later this month.

Movalson and Musburger first met in 1989, when Movalson was a Michigan undergrad working in media relations who passed on bits of information whenever Musburger worked a Wolverines game. They "hit it off," and kept in touch. After CBS dropped Musburger, its lead announcer, in 1990, he went to ABC and ESPN. Movalson bounced around the business, too, working as an ABC production assistant working in the broadcast truck for college football and "Monday Night Football" broadcasts.

Then Musburger asked him to join him as his in-booth spotter. They stayed together for every game through the 2009 season, even after Movalson left television to work at EA Sports for 11 years as director of sports marketing.

In 1997, they worked Nebraska's famous "Flea Kicker" win against Missouri, when a deflected pass thrown by former UO coach Scott Frost bounced off a player's foot and into the hand of Matt Davison for the game-tying touchdown with seconds left in regulation.

"Davison had just checked into the game and I'd pointed it out to Brent," said Movalson, who usually pointed to a name on a roster chart Musburger kept in front of him (identifying the right player on harder plays, such as fumbles or blocked kicks, could involve hand signals, Movalson said).

Matt Davison's Remarkable Catch

"He got the deflection. It allowed Brent to immediately know who caught it."

The call: "Diving touchdown Nebraska! Davison on the deflection!"

In 1999, they were in Austin when Texas running back Ricky Williams broke the NCAA career rushing record -- "He does it in dramatic fashion!" Musburger called -- a memory Williams shared with Movalson recently when they ran into one another in an airport.

Ricky Williams Passes Tony Dorsett

When Movalson moved to Eugene in 2010 to manage Oregon's IMG business, and couldn't work every weekend with Musburger, he rejoined as a spotter for big games.

The pair worked the 2011 BCS national championship between Auburn and Oregon -- "This one's for all the Tostitos!" -- and a year later at Movalson's favorite venue, when Oregon beat Wisconsin.

Musburger, 77, was accustomed to working the big games, but the announcer himself was a huge draw, able to command an audience everywhere from a dodgy corner market in Crenshaw, where Movalson and Musburger once stopped after a Notre Dame-USC game at the L.A. Coliseum, to Nike co-founder Phil Knight's office on the sportswear giant's Washington County campus.

Brian Movalson (second from left) surprised his longtime television partner, announcer Brent Musburger (center) after Musburger's final game Tuesday in Lexington, Kentucky.Courtesy Brian Movalson 

"Phil is a busy guy but he took an hour out of his day," Movalson said. "Fly on a wall: He and Brent sharing college football stories was just really neat."

After one Ducks spring football game, Musburger spun stories in Movalson's Eugene backyard to a group that included Ohio State's Urban Meyer, then working for ESPN, and former UO coaches Chip Kelly and Mark Helfrich.

Another of Movalson's favorite memories of Musburger also took place in Oregon.

It was the opening game of the 1998 college football season, before Oregon's home game against Michigan State. Musburger had not used his "you are looking live" introduction since leaving CBS eight years earlier. Over lunch in Eugene the day before the game, he told Movalson and analyst Dan Fouts he felt it belonged to that part of his career. His co-workers tried to persuade him otherwise, calling it an "indelible" phrase.

"He'd said, 'Mov, that was kind of a CBS thing,'" Movalson recalled. "With Fouts's encouragement, the next day, we're sitting in the old press box at Autzen and he opens the show with, 'You are looking live from Autzen Stadium!'

"Fouts and I looked at each other like, it's back!"

-- Andrew Greif
agreif@oregonian.com
@andrewgreif

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