In February 2002, it was fitting that in the final Super Bowl that Pat Summerall called, the game ended with Adam Vinatieri’s long game-winning field goal. Vinatieri also kicked an improbable long field goal in the snow two weeks earlier in the infamous Tuck Rule game – much like Summerall once kicked a 48-yard field goal in the snow to win a critical late-season game in 1958.

‘Adam Vin-a-TIERI!!’ Was Pat’s call as the kick went through the uprights. No other explanation was needed, there was no need explaining that the New England Patriots had just won the Super Bowl.

Learning from Ray Scott many years before, Pat understood that the story could be told on television using minimal words, letting the action tell the rest of the story.

There are other outstanding talents in the business, now as in the past. Al Michaels has now been at it himself for three decades, Jim Nantz has an incredible way of somehow bringing numerology and history into the equation. You can easily consider Keith Jackson just as legendary in regards to calling the college game.

Pat Summerall, who passed away this week at age 82, remains the gold standard to live up to however.