Lee Corso deserves this grand finale on 'College GameDay'

“You’re one of one,” Kirk Herbstreit says at the end of a documentary about Lee Corso that ESPN premiered last week.

It’s true, to a point, because Corso is a unique character in college football history, a legacy that was celebrated on Saturday when he appears on his final “College GameDay.”

Before focusing on that, though, allow me to say this: “Not so fast, my friend.”

Corso is an icon in his world, but this is a good time to note the parallel path of another son of Italian immigrants, Dick Vitale.

The two began as coaches but would be mostly forgotten by now if that was all they did in their respective sports.

Instead, they parlayed voluble personalities and a feel for showbiz into long careers that coincided with an explosive era of growth for college football and basketball, and for ESPN.

Vitale joined ESPN in 1979, the year of its inception, and Corso in 1987, the year it added the NFL to its roster and truly arrived in the sports media big time.

That is why it is proper that ESPN has continued to do right by them as new, more polished generations of announcers have come along.

Vitale, 86, still calls basketball games on a limited basis, even through a series of serious health problems.

Corso, 90, has remained a fixture on “GameDay” since a stroke in 2009 that affected his speech and made him less sharp on the air in recent seasons.

Now Corso was ushered out in style, with a grand finale in Columbus, Ohio, before an opener between Texas and Ohio State. Corso wore a tuxedo as he was celebrated all morning.

With the Ohio State band forming the letters “C-O-R-S-O” and the “GameDay” set placed on the field, Corso teased the crowd of more than 100,000 by saying, “This is one of the easiest picks I’ve ever made. Texas is loaded. Texas is No. 1. They have a Manning a quarterback. Poor, old Ohio State. They ain’t got a chance. Give me my first love.”

Then he donned a Brutus Buckeye mascot head. Ohio State went on to win, 14-7. 

Remember, it was at Ohio State on Oct. 5, 1996, that Corso first put on the Brutus head, debuting his most beloved tradition — wearing the headgear of the team he is picking.

“It was an ‘aha,’ lightning-bolt moment in the history of ‘GameDay’ and really, I think, in the history of TV sports,” his former co-host Chris Fowler says in the documentary, entitled “Not So Fast, My Friend.”

But as the doc chronicles, Corso’s TV influence dated to the debut of “College GameDay.”

It was an era when the show emanated from a studio and did not include fans’ humorous signs, headgear, celebrity pickers and everything else that has arisen over the decades.

Corso had a 73-85-6 record as a head coach at Louisville, Indiana and Northern Illinois from 1969-84, his most memorable moment being Indiana’s victory over BYU in the 1979 Holiday Bowl.

But he had shown flashes of his TV-friendly vibe on coaching shows and later in other media appearances. He was a natural.

He was actor Burt Reynolds’ roommate at Florida State. In a 1991 interview shown in the ESPN doc, Reynolds calls Corso the funniest person he ever has known.

ESPN hired Corso over the other finalist, longtime college coach Pepper Rodgers.

“Lee Corso is one of the great hires in television history,” Fowler says in the film.

Over the years Corso expanded his headgear shtick into all manner of performance art, including dressing up as Ben Franklin before a 2002 Harvard-Penn game.

Another of his trademarks is the No. 2 pencil always in his hand. Not coincidentally, he used to work as director of business development for Dixon-Ticonderoga, a pencil manufacturer.

But there is a serious side to Corso, too. As an assistant at Maryland, he recruited Darryl Hill, who in 1963 became the first Black football player in the ACC.

He recruited future ESPN analyst Tom Jackson to Louisville, landing him with his honesty by making a simple admission: Corso had not yet set foot on the Louisville campus himself when he first visited Jackson as a new hire.

The ESPN documentary ends with Corso sitting in a theater at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta watching video tributes that include everyone from big names such as Bill Belichick and Nick Saban to fans to his “GameDay” colleagues, past and present.

The “GameDay” family made these last few years possible for him.

“It was time for us to embrace him and take care of him in the way that he took care of us,” says the show’s former information man, Chris “The Bear” Fallica, who grew up in East Moriches.

Someday it will be Vitale’s turn for this sort of sendoff. These guys deserve it. They came along just when ESPN needed them most – and vice versa.

“Not So Fast, My Friend” ends with some poignant words from Herbstreit, whom Corso mentored when Herbstreit was new to the program and who in recent years has helped Corso through his physical limitations.

“It’s been an incredible honor and privilege to be with you, to be your partner for all these years,” Herbstreit says through tears. “There’ll never be another Lee Corso.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, for this show, for this sport. You’re one of one. Love you, brother.”

Earlier in the film, Corso says, “I want them to remember me as a guy that made them smile.”

Done.