Andy Griffith died...

...yesterday at age 86. But what I didn't know was that he got his big break telling the story above. From the Times obit: 

In 1953, performing for an insurance convention, Mr. Griffith, in his bumpkin preacher persona, told a comic first-person tale about attending a college football game and trying to figure out what was going on. Some 500 discs of the monologue were pressed under the title “What It Was, Was Football,” and it became a hit on local radio. [Richard] Linke, then with Capitol Records, scurried to North Carolina to acquire the rights and sign Mr. Griffith.