ANN ARBOR, Mich. – “One Shining Moment” is a time-honored part of the NCAA Tournament championship game, and it would have been played Monday night if the season hadn’t been canceled due to the coronavirus (COVID-19).
The iconic song was written by a man from Ann Arbor, and he spoke with Local 4 on the day his song should have capped off the popular tournament.
The “One Shining Moment” montage at the end of the madness. The song itself was written in 1986 by a composer from Hazlett, Michigan, who was inspired by Larry Bird at the height of his career.
“I know about this,” David Barrett said. “This is worth writing about. So I wrote down the song title on a napkin. I’m going to write about this.”
Barrett paired the lyrics to music, and that’s when his friend, Armen Keteyia, of Sports Illustrated, took the cassette to CBS Sports.
The network liked it a lot and put together the first montage when Indiana beat Syracuse in 1987.
“I had no idea what they were going to do,” Barrett said. “I thought, ‘They got it. They completely got it.’”
The song has been used after the tournament ever since to tell the story of hard work, passion, victory and defeat.
“It’s a song about time,” Barrett said. “Not all moments are equal. When you work really hard and there is that moment -- basketball is a metaphor for so many things in life.”
The NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus this year, but that didn’t stop “One Shining Moment.” Individual schools started reaching out to Barrett.
“Yesterday I spoke to Penn State,” Barrett said. “They reached out. ‘Is it OK -- we made the tournament for the first time, and our moment was stolen.’”
Penn State wasn’t alone. Multiple schools released renditions of the song, celebrating their best moments of the season.
Barrett owns the song he wrote on a napkin so many years ago, but CBS has exclusive rights to it, so anyone wanting to use it needs permission. Barrett and the network gave permission, saying we’re all in this together.