CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz recalls first meeting Chiefs’ Andy Reid more than 40 years ago

A year after graduating from the University of Houston, Jim Nantz was hired in 1982 as a sports anchor at KSL-TV in Salt Lake City where he called Utah Jazz games.

During a CBS Sports media event Tuesday, Nantz talked about the other team he covered, the one where he cut his teeth as a play-by-play man.

“I’m going to talk about BYU, because there was an old left tackle at BYU who was a GA (graduate assistant) on LaVell Edwards’ staff,” Nantz said. “That was Andy Reid, and I got to know him back then. So I’m 42 1/2 years of knowing him and appreciating him, and it’s been an honor.”

Nantz will be calling his seventh Super Bowl on Sunday when Reid and the Chiefs face the 49ers at Allegiant Stadium.

The first championship team Nantz called was the 1984 BYU Cougars, who were the nation’s lone unbeaten team at 13-0 under coach LaVell Edwards. Reid had left for another job by that time, but Nantz said Edwards’ imprint on Reid is apparent today.

“I see so much of coach Edwards in Andy. He was a man who was quiet but what he said packed a powerful punch,” Nantz said of Edwards, who died in 2016. “Very quiet, dignified and talked softly. And I know that coach Edwards meant a lot to Andy. Coach has been gone now for a few years, but he’s honored his coach really, really well.”

Reid has gone on to tremendous success since those days at BYU. He has the fourth-most coaching victories in NFL history and the third-most playoff wins.

While Nantz and Reid first met more than four decades ago, they’ve gotten to know one another really well in the Patrick Mahomes Era. The Chiefs have advanced to the AFC Championship Game in six straight seasons, and Nantz called every one of them.

The Chiefs’ success has meant Nantz and broadcast partners Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson have called a bunch of their regular-season games, too.

Super Bowl LVIII will be the third straight Chiefs postseason game with Nantz in the broadcast booth. He was in Orchard Park, New York, and Baltimore, as well.

“The one thing that’s challenging, and I like challenges, is to not be repetitive, to find fresh material to use,” Nantz said. “And I find that same struggle in some of my other realms. The greatest example of all my career was covering Tiger Woods. He won 57 of his 82 victories on CBS. I anchored every one of them, nine of his 15 majors I was at 18 walking him up, trying to sum up and contextualize the story.

“It was a challenge to say it in a different fashion with a different payoff then it was the week before and the week before that and the other six or seven times he had won that season. So it’s very similar. I still have things though in my head that are floating around that I know I haven’t said yet about KC as many times as I’ve seen them.”

Nantz noted he has experience in calling a dominant NFL franchise. Before the Chiefs became the NFL’s elite team, there was the Patriots dynasty.

During the Tom Brady Era, most of New England’s games were broadcast on CBS, and Nantz said he’s worked more than 100 Patriots games.

“That was a challenge but I felt like I did my job,” Nantz said. “No two games ever sounded alike, which is the art of storytelling.”