LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- He called his co-workers “Sweetheart.”
He called his shots with a mascot’s head and a magician’s flair.
He made Saturday morning a place where sports forgot its hangover and remembered to have fun.
And now, at 90 years old, Lee Corso is calling one last game — not from the sideline, but from the perch of college football's highest pulpit: the College GameDay desk.
They should bronze it, really. Because that desk became the sport’s altar, and Corso its unlikely high priest.
He’s always talked a good game and known his stuff. You can’t get by doing what he has done without it. But he also did it with a smile and a wink. He didn’t take it too seriously. He entertained.
The first Corso quote in ESPN’s farewell tribute special is this one: “We’re in the entertainment business. The vehicle is football.”
That's what you call a mission statement.
The coach on the elephant
Before he was television’s lovable uncle in a fluffy horse head, Corso was a football lifer.
He coached at Louisville. He was here only four seasons, but nobody forgot them. When he got here, interest in football had flatlined. When somebody told him the circus had come to town and he should ride an elephant to drum up interest, he didn’t think twice.
“I thought it was going to be a little one,” he said in a trip back to Louisville a few years back. It wasn’t. He held onto the thing for dear life – and still only sold a handful of tickets. Once, with a game on Thanksgiving Day, he bought a turkey and brought it to practice all week.
He led Louisville to a national ranking and its second-ever bowl game. The 1970 Pasadena Bowl. By the time he left, he’d done his part to spark a program that decades later would be good enough to play host to the show he stars in. Nobody would’ve imagined either, back then.
Corso went to Indiana. When he returned there for a game last season, it was as emotional as you might image.
He once coached a team called the Orlando Renegades — which sounds less like a football team and more like a biker gang that forgot to file LLC paperwork.
He was a good coach. Respectable records. Big wins. But he wasn’t remembered for what happened on the field.
He was remembered for what he built after the final whistle, a second act more iconic than the first.
An iconic television run
In 1987, when ESPN launched GameDay, Corso raised his hand. No, he wasn’t polished. He didn’t need to be. He was himself. I’ve watched him from the very start – in a dorm room lobby at the University of Louisville, where I was a sophomore who should’ve been studying.
By 1996, he debuted the headgear pick — sliding on Brutus Buckeye to a chorus of cheers.
It was absurd. It was theatrical. It was perfect.
And so began the greatest gimmick in sports television history — not because it was funny (it was), but because it was his.
Every pick was a pageant. Every stumble was a script-flip. Corso didn’t need to be right — he just needed to be there.
And somehow, he always was, smiling.
The stroke that didn't win
In 2009, Corso suffered a stroke.
For most, that would’ve ended the show. For Corso, it became Act III.
He lost parts of his speech, but none of his soul. He still had a million-dollar smile. He returned to the set that fall. Slower. Softer. But there.
He kept coming back. Week after week. Mascot after mascot. Word by precious word.
In 2018, I suffered a stroke. Nothing so serious as Corso’s. Still, in those first nervous days, I could look at his return and know that such a setback did not have to derail my livelihood. It gave me some hope.
He gave me some hope. I’ll always appreciate that.
And I’ll appreciate that ESPN never pushed him off the stage. In an industry that rarely makes space for age or infirmity, ESPN did something remarkable: It kept the camera on Corso, even as his speech slowed, even as his voice softened.
They wrote him into the script. They protected him in production. They honored the weight of what he had built.
In doing so, they reminded us — in a business of hot takes and fast fades that loyalty still matters. That wisdom has value. That the old man in the chair deserves the mic.
That’s no small thing. And it’s worth saying out loud: ESPN got this right. (And has with Dick Vitale, too.)
The last Game Day
There’s something poetic about Corso’s final pick coming at Ohio State — the site of his very first one.
He’s made 430 headgear picks over the years. He’s hit on 66.5% of them.
But this one isn’t about wins or losses. It’s about showing up. And sticking around. And loving what you do.
This week, ESPN ran the tributes. Corso sat in an empty screening room, watching them.
And the man who made a nation smile? He cried.
So did Kirk Herbstreit, his on-air wingman turned real-life guardian angel.
He struggled to finish his segments, breaking down. Couldn’t get the words out.
And somehow, that said more than any highlight ever could. The man has this must respect -- a rival network, FOX, will run feature stories about him on a competing show today. I can't think of a handful of TV people ever who would earn that kind of gesture.
But here is Corso, the guy who called Craig James “Mustang Breath,” who once rode in on a Harley, picked the Ducks, and made Katy Perry blush.
He’s calling it a career. Hard to believe.
Not so fast, my friend? No. This time it’s real.
The headgear goes back in the trunk. The Dixon-Ticonderoga gets tucked away. The roar quiets.
And all across America, grown men in college gear will wipe away something that looks suspiciously like a tears.
Because the coach didn’t just pick games. He picked up our spirits.
And for that, we are all grateful.
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