Seth Davis pens tribute to friend, CBS colleague Greg Gumbel

Greg Gumbel did not care for parades. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was something about the artifice of it all, the way people got together and cheered for all those silly things that were strolling by. Mostly, I think, it was an affectation, a touchstone of humor for Greg to come off as curmudgeonly when everyone knew that he was actually the sweetest man alive.

Greg also didn’t like golf. He tried it a couple of times, hated it, gave it up and then spent the rest of his life mocking the game and those who enjoyed it. This was a constant source of amusement because Clark Kellogg and I love golf almost as much as we love college basketball. When we would wax poetic on the CBS set about our respective games and the courses we’ve played, Greg would sit back in his chair and roll his eyes. He would make us chuckle with the overly grave tones he used when reading a promo for CBS’ golf coverage. If a highlight came on showing a player about to strike a putt, Greg would crack, “Bet it goes in.”

Greg had a strong aversion to eggs and a Constanza-like ability to act hilariously annoyed at small things. But he loved a lot of things, too, like stand-up comedy and slapstick movies and Howard Stern. Once in a while during a highlight I would drop in a “Baba Booey” reference to see if I could throw him off on live TV. Greg and I were both fluent in Trading Places. There was literally no situation where some line from the movie couldn’t be dropped in and send us both guffawing. He had a very high batting average when it came to forwarding jokes over email. He loved classic rock, especially the Rolling Stones. He’d text me photos from all kinds of shows he was attending during the year.

The only thing Greg loved more than laughing was making other people laugh. When you were around him, that’s what you usually did.

Most of all, Greg loved his family, especially his granddaughter Riley. There was no conversation that he didn’t immediately steer her way. I can scroll through years of text messages with him and watch her morph from infant to young lady. Here’s Riley learning to walk, Riley snuggling a puppy, Riley playing the violin, Riley singing, Riley smiling with her grandpa. She was the center of his universe.

Today is an immeasurably sad day, not just for me of course but for the countless people who knew and worked with Greg all these years. When people die, you always hear tributes about how great they were and how much everyone liked them. But I’m telling you, in all my years in this business, I have never heard anyone say one negative thing about Greg Gumbel. As far as I could tell, his only character flaw was his disdain for Bruce Springsteen, but I loved him for that, too. It’s what made Greg, Greg.

You see, there are some people that we work with that we get really close to. They are wonderful relationships that are professional yet intimate. Then there are those precious few who are our closest friends. We know everything about each other, including the really uncomfortable secrets. It is rare to have someone who populates both lists, but Greg Gumbel was that for me. Same with Clark Kellogg. The three of us sat at that desk in Studio 43 for two decades and became brothers. I’d like to believe the viewers could tell.

I know there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the broadcast business who are saying the same thing today. You don’t understand, I didn’t just work with Greg Gumbel, we were really good friends. I’m not just talking about on-air folks, either. Greg was one of those truly special people who achieve great fame and success but never look at other people and see “levels.” When Greg walked into a studio, he was good to everyone. It’s not that he was humble, he saw no reason to be humble. He was just one of the gang and happy to be there, only please don’t bring him a plate of eggs.

Even when Greg got cranky, he couldn’t stay that way. He was, to say the least, a masterful broadcaster. He could manage complicated traffic better than anyone I’ve ever seen. This was especially evident in the days when CBS had the rights to all of the NCAA Tournament games. We would constantly move audiences from one site to another, which could get especially gnarly as games were winding down. Greg had to preside over all that chaos while Clark and I watched in awe, never quite sure what was going on.

In all the years we worked the tournament together, I only saw Greg mess up once. He had told the audience they were going somewhere, but the producer sent them somewhere else. He got frustrated and tossed his pen into the air. This was my first year working for CBS and the moment felt awkward. Uh oh, now Mr. Gumbel is really going to get angry.

Just then, a cameramen named Claus, who was one of Greg’s best friends, told him, “Hey, if you’re tired, let somebody know.” The whole studio broke up, with Greg laughing harder than anyone.

Because of all the switching between games in progress, it was inevitable that some viewers would get ticked off. CBS got lots of angry calls. Greg was frequently the focal point of their ire. I lost count of how many times he played the voicemail from the man who was screaming, “That Greg Gumbel, he’s terrible! He should be fired!” It was one of many inside jokes we referenced during every future tournament.

The first appearance I did for CBS was during the 2003 Final Four. They had invited me on for a segment during their Sunday studio show to talk about the impending coaching carousel. I sat in the production meeting and went over what I planned to say. When it was time for rehearsal, I was nervous and hyper and delivered my info way too fast. Greg interrupted me. “No no no, just talk the way you talked during the meeting,” he said. “Just relax.” The words had the intended effect and the segment went smoothly. From that point forward, he always knew just what to say to me and when to say it.

I started my first full season with the network that December. My oldest son was born the following May. Over the next five years I had two more boys. They used to come visit me in the studio. I have all kinds of photos of the three of them with Greg and Clark, steadily getting bigger with each passing year. The producers recorded video from the studio cameras during those visits, so I have that footage, too. Greg teasing them, Greg helping them into his chair, Greg being sweet to my wife while needling me. My boys are 20, 18 and 15 now. Greg watched them all grow up. Heck, he watched me grow up.

Most of all, Greg was kind and considerate. We did 19 Selection Shows together and after every one he sent me a text message before he boarded his flight praising me for my work. He liked good company, off-color jokes, sharp suits, hot food and a tasty cocktail or two. When Greg, Clark and I got together for our annual dinner at the Final Four, it was always a treasured experience. We talked about everything and laughed so hard we’d have to dab our eyes.

I’ll remember Greg as someone who kept my confidence up and my guard down. I wanted to be just like him, someone who took his work seriously but never himself. Greg made waves several years ago when he said during a radio interview that broadcasters were overpaid because no one turned on the games just to watch us. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the industry who gently suggested that next time he had such thoughts, he should kindly keep them to himself.

And of course, there was the classic moment when Clark, Wally Szczerbiak and I danced on camera with the emojis during the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Greg refused to partake. We recorded the dancing and when the camera cut back to a live shot of Greg, he sat there silently with a stone cold expression on his face that said, “Can you believe how ridiculous those guys looked?” I used a screen shot of that face as my Twitter avatar for a while. Not that Greg understood what that meant. The last thing he would ever do was join social media, which struck him as one big noisy parade.

When Greg got some tough medical news late last year, the only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted to keep it quiet. He didn’t want the attention, the fuss, the distraction of everyone knowing. “I have no illusions about this,” he told me as he started treatment. “We’re going to give it a shot. It will either work or it won’t.” For those who knew and loved him — and there are so many of us — his passing leaves a void too vast to contemplate. I hope my life will always be good, but it will never be quite as good without Greg in it.

I’ve known for a while that this day was probably coming, but now that it’s here, I can hardly believe it. Greg leaves behind a legacy that is virtually unparalleled in the sports broadcast business. He worked in multiple places at the highest levels, calling Super Bowls and Final Fours and countless games in between. If you watched him on TV and thought, “He seems like a great guy,” I’m here to tell you that you were right. You can’t be in front of a camera for that many hours over that many years and hide who you really are. And even if you could, Greg would have never tried.

That’s because he knew that life is short and laughter is vital. He figured that if you showed up, tried your best and treated people well, then nothing else mattered. He was a unique talent, a treasured friend and the kindest man I have ever known.

May his memory be a blessing.

Seth Davis is the Editor-in-Chief of Hoops HQ, a new digital media company covering men’s and women’s college basketball. Davis is an award-winning writer and broadcaster, and since 2004 has been a host of CBS Sports and Turner Sports’ March Madness NCAA basketball tournament — where he worked alongside Greg Gumbel.