![]() A distraught Barrett figured he'd missed his chance at national exposure until Towey called a few weeks later and assured him CBS would air it during the Final Four instead.īarrett still remembers the rush he felt hearing his voice and lyrics the first time CBS played the song following Keith Smart's game-winning jump shot to help Indiana beat Syracuse in the 1987 national title game. Towey's original plan was to play "One Shining Moment" over a highlight montage at the end of the Super Bowl between the Denver Broncos and New York Giants in January 1987, but the song got scrapped after the broadcast ran long. "It took about 10 minutes for Doug to say, 'No I really am Doug Towey, I do work for CBS and we really do want your song.'" "I didn't know Armen had passed the song to CBS, so at first I thought it was a prank," Barrett said. Barrett sent Keteyian a copy of the song a few months later and didn't think much of it again until CBS Sports' Doug Towey called Barrett's home phone later that winter. ![]() When Barrett bumped into high school friend and then-Sports Illustrated writer Armen Keteyian at a party in New York in June 1986, he happened to mention the song about basketball he'd just recorded. The process of "One Shining Moment" getting from a napkin at an East Lansing cafe to a cassette in the hands of CBS Sports executives required some good fortune. It's a song that I wrote and I think it's pretty darn good." I would have liked the song even if none of this happened. "Every once in a while, I'll sit down and play it on the piano because I like the song. "I'm still amazed by the impact the song has had," Barrett said. ![]() For 25 years, CBS has made "One Shining Moment" synonymous with college basketball's championship game, playing it over a montage of highlights from the NCAA tournament as the winning team's players cut down the nets. The next morning Barrett was still inspired by Bird being at the pinnacle of his basketball career, so he scribbled the lyrics for "One Shining Moment" on a napkin in 20 minutes while waiting for a friend to meet him for brunch.Īlthough Barrett liked his new song enough to lay down music to go with it later that day, the Michigan resident had no inkling how popular it would one day become. She was so beautiful there wasn't a point in talking to her because you might as well have been talking to a Victoria's Secret model."īarrett's stammering attempt to win over the waitress may not have landed him a date, but it did become the origin for one of the most enduring songs in sports today. "Eventually I turned around for a second and she just walked away without a word. "I was trying to explain to her how magnificent Larry Bird was, how he was at a unique moment in his life where he could do almost anything he wanted on a basketball court," Barrett said. ![]()
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