ATHENS -- During the past decade, Verne Lundquist became an admirer of Larry Munson during long, late-night drives through the Deep South.

Whenever he was driving to Atlanta, Lundquist, the lead announcer for SEC games on CBS, said he always made sure to try to find a Georgia game on the radio -- with Munson at the controls.

“He had a voice unlike any other in broadcasting,” Lundquist said. “And he had this incredibly poetic way of painting word pictures.”

“‘Sugar falling from the sky’: I wish I could come up with something like that. I really do,” Lundquist said, recalling one of Munson’s most famous lines.

Munson, who called Georgia football games for 43 years, died Sunday night at age 89. His death brought a sea of memories from Bulldogs fans and from other players, broadcasters and coaches.

The Minnesota native was beloved not just because he was at Georgia for so long, and not just because he came to love the Bulldogs so much. It was also because of his word pictures -- “Sugar falling from the sky” came when Georgia clinched a Sugar Bowl bid against Auburn in 1982.

“That was part of his genius as a radio man,” said Loran Smith, who spent 36 years working alongside Munson as a sideline reporter. “It was spontaneous. It just came.”

Sonny Seiler, the owner of the line of Uga mascots, said Munson was “a Bulldog.”

“He believed in the Dogs,” Seiler said. “He wore it as a badge of honor.”

Mike Morgan, who listened to Munson call Georgia games as a kid and now calls games for the Braves and Falcons, said Munson called games like he saw them.

“It was a genuine account of what was happening on the field whether Georgia was playing well or poorly,” Morgan said. “You could tell in his voice right away how the team was playing.”

Munson didn’t become synonymous with Georgia right away.

He began his college broadcasting career at Vanderbilt, where he called football and basketball games. Then he arrived in Atlanta to call Braves games in 1966. Around that time the Georgia job opened, and Munson reached out to Bulldogs athletics director Joel Eaves, who had been Auburn’s basketball coach. Eaves remembered Munson and liked his basketball play-calling, so he hired him.

Munson replaced Ed Thilenius, who not only had good pipes -- a “Walter Cronkite, authoritative kind of voice,” said Smith -- but was well-known around Athens.

On the other hand, Munson didn’t know anybody, and at the outset he spent much of his time traveling back to Nashville, Tenn., where he still had family.

But eventually he moved his entire family to Athens. And as Vince Dooley’s teams won, it gave Munson a forum.

“He was excitable and enthusiastic. Fans love that,” Smith said.

The connection was strong also because of the times. Claude Felton, the longtime spokesman for Georgia athletics, pointed out that, like many programs, Georgia didn’t have all its games televised until the mid-1990s.

“So for the first couple of decades of his time here, the only perception people had of Georgia football was his call,” Felton said.

But it wasn’t just Bulldogs fans, according to Felton. He said he often heard from Tennessee fans, who said they enjoyed listening to Georgia games at night.

“The hobnail boot notwithstanding,” Felton said, alluding to a call Munson made when Georgia rallied to win at Tennessee in 2001.

Munson’s style wasn’t by the book. Smith relayed a conversation he had with late Braves broadcaster Skip Caray:

“We were talking about it one day over a beer. (Caray) said: ‘He violates a lot of broadcasting rules about giving you down and distance and all that. It don’t matter. That stuff he says, I don’t know where he gets it, but it’s great radio.’ ”

It wasn’t all on the fly. Smith said Munson came prepared, watched every opposing coach’s TV show and knew personnel well. Seiler recalled that Munson would get to the stadium early and spend plenty of time working with his spotters before games.

Off the field, Munson had varying interests. He loved movies and was a member of a movie club that was filled with women.

“As far as I know, he was the only male member,” Smith said.

When Seiler and Munson sat together on the team plane, they talked about movies and fishing, their common interests. They stayed away from football.

At one point when he was younger, Smith said, Munson filled in as the pianist for a band that was backing a famous singer: Frank Sinatra.

He also had a grumpy streak. If there was something to be worried about, Munson would worry. Mark Slonaker, now the color analyst for the Georgia men’s basketball games, was an assistant coach in the late 1980s when Munson was calling plays. Munson wasn’t crazy about flying, and he always worried about something going wrong with the flight.

“Coach Dooley would be saying, ‘Larry, you can’t be talking this way in front of the players!’ ” Slonaker recalled, laughing.

“Happy” Howard Williamson, a former Georgia color analyst, said Munson was “totally different” than his on-air persona.

“He was surprisingly quiet, and he was always worrying about the next game,” Williamson said. “He personified what Georgia football was all about.”

Lundquist, who has been calling SEC games for 12 years, said Munson’s calls were a reflection of the fan base.

“Larry is as passionate about his team -- and he regarded it as his team -- as any announcer I think I ever heard,” Lundquist said. “He had a connection with Georgia that, I don’t know, I’m sure it’s been equaled in other parts of the country. But Larry’s connection with the fans and followers was something I never saw” anywhere else.