A Moment To Savor

The NCAAS have just ended, and CBS's end credits have started rolling. As posttournament depression starts to set in, you hear a familiar piano preamble and realize there's still One Shining Moment, the thrill-of-victory, agony-of-defeat montage with which CBS has wrapped its tournament coverage for 15 years. Moment has become as synonymous with the NCAAs as first-round upsets. Here are the facts and figures on what Pistons guard Mateen Cleaves calls "the best three minutes of March, maybe the year."

?The montage has attracted a cult following over the years. CBS gets thousands of letters and e-mails on Moment, some of which describe it as "a spiritual event." Copies of the song are widely available on Napster.

?The tune was written by David Barrett, 44, a folk singer from Ann Arbor, Mich. In 1986 inspiration struck Barrett after he saw some Larry Bird highlights on TV. He went on to write Moment in 20 minutes.

? Barrett gave a tape of the song to a high school friend, current CBS Sports correspondent Armen Keteyian. He passed it to Doug Towey, creative director of CBS Sports, who decided to use the piece to accompany a highlight reel at the end of the 1987 Super Bowl. (Towey changed the now-famous first line, "The ball is tipped," to "The ball is kicked.") But the game went long, and the reel never ran. Towey then plugged in the song for the NCAAs later that year.

?For star power a CBS producer had Teddy Pendergrass record Moment in 1997. Pendergrass's soulful cover had purists up in arms. The network returned to Barrett's version last year.

? CBS has received numerous requests to use the song for birthdays, bar mitzvahs and other events. One time, recalls Towey, a young bride-to-be scheduled her wedding for Final Four weekend, upsetting her fianc�. "The maid of honor called me in a panic," says Towey, "saying the only thing that would appease the groom was to have One Shining Moment as his wedding song." Towey obliged, and the couple, presumably, went on to have its own shining moment.