Nantz left friends with an important reminder

We are losing the voice of March Madness.

After calling 32 straight Final Fours and a total of 354 NCAA Tournament games, Jim Nantz will step down from announcing college basketball games. He left us with a powerful, emotional goodbye.

Being a 23-year old, Nantz is all I’ve ever known for the big dance.

Many of his iconic calls live rent-free in my head. Some of the most memorable moments include No. 16 UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) taking down No. 1 Virginia in 2018, Gordon Hayward’s shot that almost earned Butler a national championship, Villanova’s Kris Jenkins’ buzzer beater in 2016 and even Aaron Harrison’s 3-pointer that helped Kentucky to take down my beloved Wisconsin Badgers in 2014.

The sheer amount of games Nantz has covered cement him as a legendary sports broadcaster.

His retirement will turn the page into a new era for story telling in the NCAA tournament, but he didn’t leave us empty handed.

Following Connecticut’s win over San Diego State in Monday’s national championship game, Nantz left us with some final thoughts.

“Just remember, one thing I learned through all of this is everybody has a dream and everybody has a story to tell. Just try to find that story.

“Be kind.

“I mean this, not to try to play off ‘hello friends’ but to (Bill Raftery), everybody in the college game, my CBS family, my family, all the viewers, thank you for being my friend.”

As I begin my career, I don’t know if I could have heard a better message.

Nantz reinforced that my job is to be a storyteller. It is to recognize there is something special about each individual. And my goal is to share what is special about them with the world.

Having the mindset of something being “work” will only make an otherwise fun job mundane, boring and burdensome. A job with which I get to share the stories, joys and successes of the community (especially in sports) should never be something I would dread doing or consider “just another day.”

The middle part of the message is something I feel I both excel at and fail at daily.

I do my best to be kind to others, but like anyone else, I have my shortcomings.

The biggest place I tend to fail is being kind to myself.

This is something every single one of us can work on each day.

The final sentiment of Nantz’s parting message was to thank us.

Nantz said that final line — “thank you for being my friend” — with an unsteady voice, as if he was fighting tears.

The line got to me and most of my friends as well. It was the last time we were going to hear from our friend on the big stage.

It helped me recognize how important his first two points were.

You don’t get to that stage where so many viewers feel impacted by your life and sports journalism career unless you are being kind, humble and looking for the stories of others, not your own success.

While Nantz will continue to broadcast NFL games, The Masters and other events, we will greatly miss him at the end of March and beginning of April.

March Madness won’t be the same without Jim Nantz, but his example will hopefully lead myself and other young sports journalists to careers that can change lives just as he has.

And, if we’re lucky, to make as many friends.