Joe Starkey is retiring as play-by-play voice of the 49ers. Don't recognize the name? He's the broadcaster who always sounds like his testicles are wired to a car battery, as this legendary clip demonstrates.

They simply call it The Play: That game-ending kickoff in 1982 in which Cal scored a multi-lateral touchdown — plowing through the Stanford band in the process — to win the Big Game. John Elways' tearful post-game quote: "The band ruined my college career," was delicious, but nothing helped cement the moment in college history like Starkey's call. Subtlety was never the man's strong suit; any play of any significance was reported as if Martians had just landed on a farm outside of Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

Also, accuracy was not a huge priority. "Gore catches it at the 40 for a three-yard gain; not enough for a first down ... wait, they're giving him EIGHT yards. And that's Johnson, not Gore. Sorry." In other words, the perfect play-by-play guy for San Francisco. The longtime sports director for KGO would for years call a Cal game on Saturday and then trundle off to wherever the 49ers were playing the next day; a schedule that finally got the better of him. He'll continue to call games for Cal, however, although how his larynx ever recovered from that day in 1982 is beyond me.

End Of An Era: Joe Starkey Retires [Santa Rosa Press Democrat]

Among basketball purists, five names ring out when talk revolves around the most influential major college coaches ever. Hank Iba, John Wooden, Claire Bee, Bobby Knight and Newell, not necessarily in that order, demand ultimate respect from anyone who really knows anything about the game. Knight would be considered the modern offspring of the others, products of the early decades of the 20th Century, a hardscrabble Hoosiers America where defense and fundamentals were king. Knight himself counts Newell as the most influential coach in his life. And before you start your talk about Wooden and his 10 national championships, consider this:

Newell retired with a 234-123 overall college coaching record, including an undefeated record against Wooden the last eight times they met. Wooden eventually cornered the market on talent at UCLA, but as Knight said on Monday, "Nobody contributed more to this game and its history than Pete Newell."

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Well into his octogenarian days, Mr. Newell would help players at the major college and NBA levels at his annual Big Man's camps in Los Angeles, Hawaii and later Las Vegas, where he taught millionaire pros how to play better in the post — and didn't charge them a dime for the instruction. Along the way he elicited glowing comments like this one from Shaquille O'Neal: "He's the best teacher there is."

"Players today have increased physical skills, but basketball skills have diminished," Newell once said to the San Francisco Chronicle. "I resent the fact that many of them take the game for granted. It starts at the top, though. It's an overpriced, corporate-dominated business run by lawyers who have a bad product, and don't know how to fix it."

Fuckin' A. But Newell wasn't always so dour. Fun fact: He appearad in several Our Gang comedies as a kid, and would have pursued the acting profession, probably, had he got a choice role opposite Charlie Chaplin in The Kid. That role eventually went to Jackie Coogan.

Coogan went on to become Uncle Fester in The Addams Family, Newell to become a teacher. That's what college basketball coaches were in his day, instead of the PR figureheads they are now. (Well, most of them).

I'm proud to have known Pete Newell, to have interviewed him, to have warmed myself a tiny bit in the glow of his knowledge and passion for the game. When I coached a youth team a couple of years ago, the first thing I did was get out the traffic cones and run the defensive slides drill he once showed me. The fundamentals were the same in 2006 as they were in 1946; in basketball, and in life. You pull up your socks, bend your knees, move your feet, and just play defense, dammit.

Pete Newell: Basketball Coach And Teacher [San Francisco Chronicle]