Dick Vitale paid tribute to the late Billy Packer, writing, 'No doubt that Dick (Enberg), Al (McGuire) & Billy (Packer) were the Best Trio ever.'
Packer's son Mark told the Associated Press that his father had been hospitalized in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the past three weeks and had several medical issues, and ultimately succumbed to kidney failure.
"He really enjoyed doing the Final Fours," Mark said."He timed it right. Everything in life is about timing. The ability to get involved in something that, frankly, he was going to watch anyway, was a joy to him. And then college basketball just sort of took off with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and that became, I think, the catalyst for college basketball fans to just go crazy with March Madness.
Packer joined CBS in 1981, when the network acquired the rights to the NCAA Tournament, and remained the network's main analyst until 2008. Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports, said Packer was"synonymous with college basketball for more than three decades and set the standard of excellence as the voice of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament."
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