One Shining Moment

“The ball is tipped…”  In honor of the NCAA basketball tournament kicking off today, here’s a little history on the “One Shining Moment” video along with the 2009 version.

Mike Krzyzewski’s book Five Point Play notes, “Every year, at the Final Four, CBS puts clips of the championship team’s performance to the song “One Shining Moment’ — and shows it to conclude their television broadcast. It’s the national anthem of college basketball, and every kid’s dream to appear in that video.” “One Shining Moment is arguably the most famous song in sports,” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. The NCAA tournament has been using the song since the 1987 tournament. While several artists have performed the song, the most recent and best known rendition is performed by Luther Vandross.

Ann Arbor’s David Barrett wrote the song “One Shining Moment” which has been used for the Olympics, PBS specials and most notably, the NCAA Basketball Tournament highlights.

Barret notes from his web site www.davidbarrett.com,

“Writing this song changed my life. Strange how that is so. I mean; the writing came so effortlessly. I knew immediately after that I had something special on my hands. In fact I got up from the piano and went immediately to the phone and called a friend and said… “Glen I just wrote a great song.” It was almost like… “where did this come from?” In any case, the song opened all sorts of doors for me in a professional sense. But on a personal note, it also showed me to write about what mattered to me. I mean, I just wrote it because I thought it was worth writing. I learned to trust that. For years I had been listening to what others thought was valid. It was this song that made it clear to me that my job was to write about what I know, and tell the truth about that… Simple.

In 1985, I was visiting a friend in New York City who just happened to write for Sports Illustrated. We were watching the NBA Finals, talking about sports and life and I remembered that I had written this song about sports and achievement, so when I got home I sent it to him. He took it over to CBS without me knowing, and they called me up out of the blue.”

Doug Towey, who is shown at the end of the 2009 clip, recently passed away. He played a pivotal role in making the song “One Shining Moment,” the anthem of college basketball. After Barrett penned the song in 1986, he gave it to his high school friend CBS News Correspondent, Armen Keteyian. Keteyian passed it along to Towey. Towey planned on using the music for highlights of Super Bowl XXI in January 1987. But because of timing, it never aired. A few months later, Towey was looking for a way to summarize the CBS Sports’ NCAA Tournament coverage and decided to use it. The lyrics were changed from “the ball is kicked” to “the ball is tipped.”

ENJOY THE 2009 “ONE SHINING MOMENT”

Lyrics:

The ball is tipped
and there you are
you’re running for your life
you’re a shooting star
And all the years
no one knows
just how hard you worked
but now it shows…
(in) ONE SHINING MOMENT, IT’S ALL ON THE LINE
ONE SHINING MOMENT, THERE FROZEN IN TIME

But time is short
and the road is long
in the blinking of an eye
ah that moment’s gone
And when it’s done
win or lose
you always did your best
cuz inside you knew…
(that) ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU REACHED DEEP INSIDE
ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU KNEW YOU WERE ALIVE

Feel the beat of your heart
feel the wind in your face
it’s more than a contest
it’s more than a race…

And when it’s done
win or lose
you always did your best
cuz inside you knew…
(that) ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU REACHED FOR THE SKY
ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU KNEW
ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU WERE WILLING TO TRY
ONE SHINING MOMENT….

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