Louisville basketball: What I’ll miss most about Sean Moth

Louisville basketball and football games will never be the same.

There are plenty of distinctions that make experiencing a Louisville basketball or football game unique.

The culture around University of Louisville athletics has a professional sports feel. UofL is defined by its fans ability to show up and show out for big games, and their overall fervor and knowledge for sports.

Louisville games are social events. Stadiums are built to facilitate comfortable social situations where grabbing a beer with your buddy and watching your team feels the same regardless of where you watch from.

The feeling you get at a Louisville basketball or football game has become just as predictable as the winning product that teams consistently put in the floor or the field.

If you’ve attended any game over the last two decades, you know that if one thing has become synonymous with Louisville athletics culture it’s the voice narrating the action.

If you walk into the KFC Yum! Center for any given game, the sites, the smells, and the feeling you get inside the arena have become commonplace. But you don’t truly feel at home until the bass of a Sean Moth read reverberates through the PA system.

An announcement of ”ladies and gentlemen, here come the Cardinals!” has predated and lived past Rick Pitino walking the sidelines. Moth has been sharing his unmistakably thunderous voice with Louisville fans for over twenty years.

Moth has found a way to make his announcement of every player and every moment unforgettable. From “that’s good for another” (Cards first down) to his “THREEEE” calls bringing down the house. From “Luuuuke” Whitehead to Hancock, his calls as warm and endearing as they have been predictable.

Mr. Moth finds the perfect emotion for every occasion. Every “touchdown Cardinals” echoes perfectly through Cardinal Stadium. His ponderous calls are perfectly annunciated from an ad read to a game-winning touchdown call.

Now, after 22 years of calling football and men’s and women’s basketball games, Moth is bowing out as the voice of Louisville athletics.

Moth will still provide his eloquent and, somehow, never boring play-by-play calls of Louisville baseball games going forward.

However, the next time the Cardinals take the field, there will be a new voice announcing their arrival.

As Louisville basketball and football turn over a new leaf entering year two and three of coaching regimes, it makes sense for Moth to pass the torch. A new era of Louisville athletics is just beginning.

However, regardless of the excitement fans feel in the stands, the new Public Address announcer will have to blaze a completely new trail to find a spot in the hearts of Cardinals fans.

That’s what we will miss the most as Cards fans. A new public address announcer is almost certain to take Moth’s place and gain a sense of comfort with the fans. However, they will never replace what Moth brought. Excitement in every big moment; encouragement during trying times. He saw Louisville through peaks and valleys.

In the end, Moth leaves a legacy that will not soon be forgotten and a void impossible to fill.