Sam McKewon and Evan Bland start off the podcast by remembering the life and legacy of Greg Sharpe, the voice of Nebraska football and baseball.
Kyle Perry heard the familiar baritone voice and froze in his tracks. For the second time in his life, he was starstruck.
The former Nebraska pitcher was a freshman in the spring of 2019 when he first crossed paths with the soundtrack of his childhood. The Millard South graduate was leaving West Stadium when in walked the guy who had been calling Husker football and baseball games since Perry could remember.
There was Greg Sharpe.
"Mr. Sharpe," Perry said shyly, lowering his head a bit. Saying it seemed as surreal as meeting Tom Osborne the previous semester.
"KP!" came the reply as Sharpe flashed a wide smile, then the two continued their separate ways.
"It made my day and he literally just said my initials," Perry reflected this week. "That's the kind of mountain of a man he was."
Sharpe's death on Valentine's Day prompted countless testimonials about the lasting impact of "The Voice of the Huskers."
Fans and the athletic department have replayed many of his iconic football calls -- the Jack Hoffman spring game run, Alex Henery's 57-yard field goal, the punt formation without a punter in honor of Sam Foltz. Last month, NU named the home radio booth inside Memorial Stadium in his honor with his description of the 2013 Hail Mary winner against Northwestern spelled out next to the door.
Yet for all the high-profile football moments, Sharpe spent more time around the baseball program than anywhere else.
He broadcasted roughly 210 NU football games since taking the lead job late in the 2007 campaign. He filled more than 800 days at a ballpark for play-by-play spanning 17 seasons.
His final one came last May as the Huskers captured the Big Ten tournament title at a red-filled Schwab Field to make a rough stretch of pancreatic cancer treatment feel a bit better.
Now a new baseball spring will unfold for the first time in a generation without "Sharpie" behind the microphone for the Huskers Radio Network. NU will wear "Sharpe Strong" patches on its hats. HRN broadcasters will leave an empty chair between them in the booth.
It'll be quieter. Fewer "Sharpie-isms" -- bad dad jokes delivered just to get a reaction.
The leadup to every pregame interview Sharpe did with coach Will Bolt for five years began with the same question. It's one those around the program now must ask themselves.
Well, you ready to do this?
For Sharpie (And from Sharpie?)
The night that went down as perhaps the heaviest and most emotional for Ben McLaughlin and Nick Handley began with a round of golf.
The Nebraska baseball broadcasters wouldn't have been in the Phoenix area for the opening games last weekend if not for Sharpe. He vouched for their inclusion on the crew.
McLaughlin in 2014, after breaking in on the production side as a UNL freshman in 2008. Handley in 2016, after hosting a weekday show and covering high school sports.
Both learned of their mentor's death on the team bus ride back to the hotel that Friday night. McLaughlin barely slept, dreading Saturday's broadcast and doubting his ability to do it justice. He and Handley planned to golf that morning -- first pitch for Nebraska wasn't until 7 p.m. -- but considered canceling.
The thing about golfing with Sharpe, McLaughlin said, is what he lacked in ability he made up for as a caddy.
Where to place a shot. How far to the water. Where to set up on the ball.
McLaughlin felt Sharpe's advice that day, too. Stop pouting. You'll get through it. Swing the sticks.
McLaughlin and Handley did, and found some relief for a few hours.
The emotions came rushing back at the ballpark for McLaughlin by the batting cages, where infielder Rhett Stokes embraced him without a word. The broadcasters both choked up during their pregame thoughts and eventually settled in, sharing Sharpe stories as No. 24 Nebraska and No. 16 Vanderbilt took a tight game into the late innings.
Sharpe was the crew's resident weatherman and travel agent, McLaughlin said. He would have made sure his younger partner would be wearing enough even on that 70-degree night. Unless the wind was blowing directly into the booth -- Sharpe disliked having his papers rustled -- the window would be open to experience the game elements. Only on the hottest late-season days could Sharpe be persuaded to wear shorts.
Memories often made themselves. Sharpe and McLaughlin once gave updates about a car burning in the distance during an early-season game. Last year, Sharpe posted a picture of the sunset on social media when NU played at Grand Canyon -- McLaughlin ribbed him on-air for its poor quality.
Sharpe found it hilarious late during a Nebraska blowout loss to Arkansas in 2017 that McLaughlin had to introduce a Razorback pitcher with a quirky name. As the Huskers were losing to Binghamton in a 2014 regional game, McLaughlin and colleague Lane Grindle threw items in frustration before NU rallied in the ninth.
"Greg was just giving us so much crap about it, how we were acting like babies the whole time," McLaughlin said. "Like it was just a ho-hum Husker win."
Handley's favorite tale is when he and Sharpe went to Penn State in 2021.
Sharpe had never been for baseball -- Handley had a few times -- so the job of finding a restaurant Saturday night fell to the younger man. Sharpe requested a nice steakhouse.
The pair instead ended up at a "glorified Sizzler" as a mortified Handley watched Sharpe plate up at a so-so buffet. Sharpe refused to criticize. "It's actually pretty good!" he insisted between runs to the salad bar.
Reminiscing late last Saturday gave way to a new unforgettable as Nebraska secured its first win over a ranked team in two years. The broadcast came out of a commercial break to replay the final call.
As McLaughlin's closing unscripted line repeated -- "Sharpie, that one is for you!" -- the lights in the radio booth flickered five or six times.
It must be NU Sports Information Director Jared Meister joking around, McLaughlin thought. Then he saw Meister on the field. The electricity working just fine in the rest of the press box.
Flickers. To the rhythm of a Greg Sharpe fist-pump calling a big finish.
"When it finally hit me was when I looked at Nick and he had tears in his eyes," McLaughlin said. "We made eye contact like, 'Did that just really happen?' That's when I realized that was Sharpie in there with us. Greg always said he didn't believe in coincidences -- this is one that isn't a coincidence."
Said Handley: "It had to happen that way. Nebraska had to win that game. I believe in a higher power but I never experienced anything like I did then."
Perry, downing tequila sodas and watching every pitch on MLB Network with the intensity of a playoff game from Fort Myers, Florida, called the win over Vanderbilt a "core memory." That every RBI came off the bat of Gabe Swansen (initials: G.S.), a player Perry said was one of Sharpe's favorites, added to the mystique.
Last May, Nebraska introduced the "Sharpe Strong" hat patches on the night Jackson Brockett tossed the team's first individual nine-inning no-hitter in 70 years -- against Sharpe's alma mater, Kansas State, no less.
"I'm a man of faith," Bolt said. "I certainly think there are some little God-winks in there if you pay close enough attention."
It's who you listened to
Michael Pritchard paused for a beat to process the question from his grandmother. How was his hamstring doing?
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The Husker played a road game the night before in 2014 without issue. So the outfielder answered her query with one of his own: Why do you ask?
Greg Sharpe.
He had said during the broadcast Pritchard was going with a hammy about 80% to 85%. But Pritchard never told him that.
Who the Husker did tell was trainer Jerry Weber that morning during breakfast at the hotel. With Sharpie sitting nearby.
"He was always listening," said Pritchard, now a pharmaceutical salesman in Phoenix. "That's why he was so great at his job. He knew us on such a personal level and he was always around."
When it comes to the broadcaster-team relationship, baseball is different from most sports.
Football and basketball can be 30-hour in-and-out business trips, a baseball traveling party can regularly be together from early Thursday to late Sunday for a weekend series.
Everyone mills together at baggage claim. They share a bus. They bump into each other in the hotel lobby.
Hotels were where Sharpe was at his best, many former players said. He liked to hang out with a cup of coffee, available to chat but never inserting himself into conversations. Parents would compliment him on a call or ask him how the football team was shaping up.
Logan Foster, an outfielder on the 2021 team after transferring from Texas A&M, recalled a smiling Sharpe offering encouragement to players after a tough loss. He still believed in them, it showed.
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"I could have gone 0 for 3 and would see him on the hotel elevator the next day," Foster said. "He'd be like, 'Hey, you're going to get it done today.' He was always optimistic about tomorrow."
Foster's time with Sharpe began with the player growing up in Lincoln listening to baseball broadcasts and, eventually, hearing his own name on them. Foster even did some radio work for NU in recent years, including a couple of innings with Sharpe during last season's Friday game with Indiana.
Foster, who went to high school with Sharpe's oldest daughter, Emily, was shocked when she told him her dad was a big fan of his.
"It kind of blew me away," Foster said.
Prichard grew closer with Sharpe when he returned as a graduate assistant in 2018. The two often debated football -- Pritchard annually predicting 5-7 seasons, Sharpe never guessing worse than 9-3.
What Pritchard came to appreciate more was Sharpe's on-air work. Pritchard's great-aunt was in her 80s when he played and could listen to every game. Same for his ailing grandfather, who couldn't get to the ballpark.
"That's who they listened to was Greg Sharpe," Pritchard said. "He holds a special place in my family's heart. He was the narrator."
Steady, prepared, selfless
Consistency. The trait is a must for Darin Erstad.
The former Nebraska and Major League Baseball star refined it during his playing career then emphasized it in others as Husker coach from 2012 through 2019. He got it from a surprise place, too -- the team broadcaster.
"He'd show up for the pregame interviews and he was the same. After we would lose, he's the same," Erstad said. "After we'd get done with our stuff he was super mad because we lost. He was a homer but he was so perfectly objective for the game -- he just found that balance. I don't know how people do that."
Now retired in Lincoln, Erstad remains an avid follower and supporter of Nebraska athletics and rarely misses a baseball broadcast. He used to stream the games, but couldn't get the video to sync up with the radio -- "I hate that." Erstad eventually went to radio only and hasn't regretted it.
"Maybe that means I'm old," Erstad said. "But the broadcast was so pure and he was just so good at that."
Meister said the only thing more obvious than Sharpe's talent was his relatability.
Meister moved into his role as information director in January 2022, and recalled the opening series at Sam Houston State when he glanced at Sharpe -- who he had listened to growing up -- and felt they had been working together for years.
Sharpe always looked ahead and around. At Nebraska's opponent a week or two away. At other happenings nationally. At other NU teams. Prep work for other media was his passion.
"I can't count how many times he updated me on track results or women's basketball results during a baseball game," Meister said. "He loved Husker sports no matter what it was."
Sharpie was Sharpie.
Grabbing ballpark hot dogs with just ketchup. Responding quickly to texts. Asking about players amid his own health issues.
When the baseball schedule included trips to Rutgers or Maryland -- known for less-than-ideal broadcast setups -- Sharpe would joke that Nebraska football played its spring game that weekend and he would be unavailable. When the Huskers finished a disastrous inning, he would hum along with the P.A. music during the break instead of showing frustration. A reminder of gratitude for being at a ballpark at all.
Those around Nebraska baseball saw Sharpe for what they aim to be. Steady. Reliable. Prepared. Selfless.
"When you hear that voice," Bolt said, "it just sounds like home."
McLaughlin woke up last Sunday recharged and willing to believe the season ahead will still hold joy. That's what Sharpe brought every day. It's what the Huskers will bring in his memory.
His narration isn't through yet.
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