By Paulo Camacho
The 2016 NCAA Champion Villanova Wildcats watch CBS Sports’ yearly rendition of the “One Shining Moment” montage at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
It’s one of the most recognizable anthems in all of American sport. And, while the tune can be ridiculed these days for a seemingly dated, cheesy melody and the kind of inspirational lyrics suited for an episode of “Sesame Street”, it is still a much-beloved song for college basketball fans, going on decades.
Because, ultimately, for the event it represents, it properly gives its participants, from places both large and small, their one shining moment.
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is well underway, and is a wildly popular sporting festival every year. From massive upsets to impressive performances by the nation’s best college players, the three-week, 68-team extravaganza known as “March Madness” produces some of American sports’ most memorable moments.
Culminating with the National Championship game on April 3rd, the sporting world will celebrate another year of basketball with the annual tradition of “One Shining Moment” — a montage recalling the tournament’s best memories, to the theme of the same name. Used exclusively by CBS Sports since 1987, the song has become synonymous with the event many refer to as “The Big Dance”, and is an inspirational, yet admittedly cheesy, end to the annual tournament.
It has had a number of singers over the years, since its introduction to the cultural pantheon. It began with the song’s writer and composer, David Barrett, whose version ran from 1987 to 1993, then given a brief revival from 2000 to 2002. Perhaps the most recognizable version of the song came from recording artist Luther Vandross, running on CBS from 2003 to 2009, and revived in 2011. Classic soul singer Teddy Pendergrass sang the version that ran for the tournament from 1994 to 1999. Two popular modern artists each had one-year stints performing the song for March Madness — Jennifer Hudson in 2010 and Ne-Yo in 2016, as a special performance specifically for the champions of that year, the Villanova Wildcats.
Interestingly enough, for as synonymous “One Shining Moment” is with college basketball, its origins were derived of different sports. As Barrett tells it, he got the inspiration for the March Madness anthem in 1986 while watching Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird play on TV, late one night at a nearly-empty bar in East Lansing, Michigan. As the story goes, Barrett tried in vain to impress an attractive waitress by regaling her with stories of the famed 1979 Indiana State Sycamores team, led by a 22-year-old Bird, who fell to the Magic Johnson-led Michigan State Spartans in the NCAA Championship game.
While he didn’t impress the waitress, it was there that the phrase “One Shining Moment” popped into Barrett’s head, and he scribbled the song on a bar napkin that same night, in 20 minutes. The song was born. And, after professionally recording the song in the fall of 1986, Barrett contacted childhood friend and Sports Illustrated/CBS reporter Armen Keteyian. He passed the song along to him, hoping to see if the network would be interested in using it. And they were — but not for college basketball.
As it turned out, CBS was going to use “One Shining Moment” as the outro song for another big sporting event — Super Bowl XXI between the New York Giants and Denver Broncos — in 1987. However, fate — and, apparently, poor network time management — intervened, when the Super Bowl broadcast ran long, and CBS was unable to run a “One Shining Moment” game montage, due to time constraints. After the omission, CBS Sports Creative Director Doug Towey decided to stick the song at the end of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, instead. And, the rest, as they say, is history.
Now, the playing of “One Shining Moment” is as memorable to sports fans and non-sports fans alike for the cheesy-yet-inspiring lyrics, the corny-yet-touching melodies, and the captured moments that go along with them. Legendary college coach, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, calls it “the best song for any sport in the world.”
And, with good reason: for anyone who grew up watching college basketball, and especially March Madness, it is considered the musical and emotional representation of everything the tournament, and all of the best of sports, has to offer. It is at the heart of why every big-time and small-time college basketball player dedicates themselves to the sport: