Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Munson attended Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and Minnesota State University Moorhead. While at MSUM, he played basketball as a center and guard and football as an end and tackle.

Munson served as a United States Army medic in an Army Hospital during World War II. Upon leaving the military, he spent all $200 of his discharge pay to enroll in a Minneapolis radio broadcasting school.

He once played piano for band leader Tommy Dorsey. The band's piano player came down with appendicitis and was hospitalized. He played by ear and could not read music. Before Munson rubbed shoulders with Vince Dooley, Mark Richt and Herschel Walker, he played piano for heartthrob Frank Sinatra.

After an on-air job at the KDLR AM radio station in Devils Lake, North Dakota, Munson moved on to AM radio station KFBC in Cheyenne, Wyoming, as a sports reporter in 1946. At KFBC, Munson would eventually take over calling football games for the Wyoming Cowboys. In 1947 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for an announcing job with the Nashville Vols minor league baseball team. During the baseball off-season, Munson convinced local Nashville radio station WSM (AM) to broadcast Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball games with himself as the announcer. The basketball broadcasts were immediately successful, and WSM added Vanderbilt Commodores football games to its schedule as well with Munson as the broadcaster. Munson also created a television show about hunting and fishing called The Rod & Gun Club on a local Nashville station.

In 1966, the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team hired Munson as part of their initial broadcast team, the franchise having moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta. In March 1966, Georgia Bulldogs football radio announcer Ed Thilenius resigned to become a broadcaster for the new Atlanta Falcons franchise. Munson called Georgia athletics director Joel Eaves to express his interest in the Georgia job, and Munson was hired shortly thereafter. For many years after joining the University of Georgia broadcasts, Munson would make the commute to Athens for the weekend football games from his home in Nashville so that he could continue producing The Rod & Gun Club during the week. Munson continued to live in Nashville until 1978 when he moved to metro Atlanta. Munson moved to Athens in 1997.

Munson had missed only one game in his UGA career -- he sat out the Oct. 6, 1990 loss to Clemson following back surgery -- before he opted to call only home games in 2007. On September 22, 2008, Larry announced his retirement from being the play-by-play announcer for the University of Georgia Bulldogs.

Although Munson left the microphone, the university found a way to honor his legacy in a pregame tradition that exists to this day. As Georgia's Redcoat marching band plays "The Battle Hymn of the Bulldog Nation" before each game at Sanford Stadium, Munson's voice still implores the fans to cheer for the Bulldogs that day while highlights from throughout the years play on the stadium's video board.

"As we prepare for another meeting between the hedges," Munson's voice reminds them, "let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Go Dawgs."

Larry Munson, who spent 42 years as the radio play-by-play announcer for Georgia's football team, died November 20, 2011 at the age of 89 after complications from pneumonia.

GeorgiaDogs.com Tribute Video

Larry's Five Favorite Calls

Below are Larry's 5 favorite calls, according to his 2009 autobiography, "From Herschel to a Hobnail Boot: The Life and Times of Larry Munson," which was co-written with Tony Barnhart. I pulled this information from an ESPN blog written Nov 21, 2011.