THE VOICE OF THE HOOSIERS

Don Fischer Celebrates 50 Years As Radio Voice Of Iu

Writer / Ryan Kennedy Photography Provided

Legendary radio broadcaster Don Fischer begins his 50th year as the radio voice of Indiana University football and basketball this season, but he almost didn’t make it through his first game.

“To tell you how much of a fool I was the first game that I did for IU, because I was from Illinois and I’d always heard ‘the University of Illinois’ - I wasn’t even thinking about Indiana University, and that would be the only thing you could call it because obviously that’s what Indiana University is,” Fischer says. “They don’t want to be called University of Indiana three times in the first half of the first game that I did for IU. I called them the University of Indiana, and the phones at our radio station lit up like a Christmas tree. It was that bad. I thought, ‘There’s a chance I might get fired after my first gig here.’”

A native of Rochelle, Illinois, Fischer, by his own admission, wasn’t a great student. It’s not that he wasn’t smart - he just didn’t like school. College was out of the question. After he graduated from high school, Fischer wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. He had several jobs. In the eight months after graduation, Fischer says he worked five different jobs. Finally, he got a job as a ticket clerk for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in Mendota, Illinois. He worked the night shift.

One night, about seven months into working for the railroad, Fischer was flipping through a Sport magazine during a break at the depot when he saw a full-page ad for a home correspondence course from a broadcast school out of Wisconsin. “I looked at that and I went, ‘You know what?

I may not have been a great athlete, but I got to play a lot of sports from the time I was about 8 years old on up, and I think I can become a sportscaster,’” Fischer says. He signed up. Records of the lessons, a workbook and a tape recorder arrived in the mail, and Fischer’s journey to becoming a legendary play-by-play announcer began.

Fischer got his first job in radio at a small station in Butte, Montana. Fischer heard from a friend who’d already gone out there that the station was hiring. Despite being only halfway through his correspondence course, Fischer sent the station one of his tapes. The station called him a week later. “They said, ‘If you can get to Butte, Montana, for an interview, there’s a good chance we can hire you,’” Fischer says. He took a 48-hour train ride to interview for the position. A week later they hired him.

In Butte, Fischer worked the night shift as both a radio DJ and the station’s janitor. He worked there for about 15 months. Fischer returned to his home state, where he got his first shot at doing play-by-play, calling games for local high schools in Ottawa, Illinois. From there, he got a job at a radio station in Terre Haute, Indiana. Fischer says he called 175 games per year at every level of sport. “We did football, basketball, baseball, Babe Ruth baseball,” he says. “We did softball games. I was doing play-by-play almost every night of the week.” He was even calling junior football games out of the back of a pickup truck, with a blind color analyst. “It got me rolling as far as my playby-play career was concerned, and I just had a great time with it,” he says.

When Indiana University granted exclusive broadcast rights to WIRE radio station in Indianapolis, Fischer got a call from a friend telling him that the station was looking for someone to call play-by-play for IU football and basketball games. Fischer, along with 270 other hopefuls, sent the station a tape and a resume. A few weeks later he got a call to interview for the job. Soon after, he was named the first official voice of Indiana University football and basketball, a title he still holds five decades later.

Fischer has broadcast more than 2,100

Indiana University games. Included in that number are 12 bowl games, five NCAA basketball Final Fours, four NCAA championship games and two NIT championship games. He’s won Indiana Sportscaster of the Year 27 times by the National Sports Media Association, and four times by the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. He was inducted into the Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2010. Indiana University awarded him the J.W. Bill Orwig Medal, an award given to non-alumni for distinguished service to the university.

When Fischer started calling IU games, they were broadcast over a telephone line. Now, everything sounds like it’s recorded in a studio. “It’s just a totally different business than when I started out, but the truth of the matter is, the games haven’t changed that much,” he says. “Style plays and things like that change a lot over the years, but the game itself is still football. The game itself is still basketball, and from that perspective, that much has not changed. That’s why I love doing what I do, because I’ve been able to do my style of football and basketball broadcasts for the last 50 years.”

Fischer says he developed his style listening to the likes of the Chicago Cubs’ Harry Caray and the St. Louis Blues’ Dan Kelly. Much like an athlete watching tape of a previous game, Fischer listens to his broadcasts, noting what he did well and what needs improving. He pays special attention to make sure he’s not repeating himself. Play-by-play is spontaneous. Fischer doesn’t think about what he’s saying while he’s saying it, but he takes care to avoid using the same terminology for certain types of plays.

Preparation is key. Fischer reads everything he can get his hands on leading up to a game. He learns about storylines and stats, as well as stars for opposing teams and how they’re playing. He talks to sports information directors to get the correct pronunciations of players’ names. All of this is in the service of providing the audience with an objective, informative and entertaining listening experience. “It boils down to just knowing your product, being prepared to utilize the experience that you have, and you get into a groove with it,” he says. “Once you get into it, it’s not that difficult at all, but it takes a while.”

Fischer’s voice is the soundtrack to some major moments, not just in Indiana University history, but also in the history of college sports. Fischer says he doesn’t have a favorite call, but the 1976 national championship basketball game, when Indiana University won the title to finish the season undefeated, holds a special place in his heart. “It was emotional for me,” he says. “I was 29 years old at the time, getting the job when I was 26 here. I had tears running down my cheeks. It was so emotional in that sense. I don’t think you could tell that I was bubbling up with tears on the radio, but it was just a fun thing to be a part of. It’s always been a vivid memory for me.”

Fischer claims his memory isn’t as good as it used to be, as he breaks down Keith Smart’s famous game-winning jump shot with six seconds to go in the 1987 NCAA national title basketball game, and recalls the wind changing directions in the third quarter of IU football’s win over the University of Michigan that same year. “I’ve had so many opportunities to call some broadcasts that turned out to be kind of historical performances, so I can’t pick out just one,” he says.

Even after 2,100 games, Fischer says he still gets nervous before the season starts. He compares it to the butterflies athletes get before they play in a game. He says he goes into every season optimistic, even if a team is coming off a disappointing year. “That’s certainly the way I feel this year too,” he says. “So my 50th year doesn’t feel a great deal different than it did back in 1973 when I started in Indiana.”

RYAN MILLER, BROWNSBURG FIRE TERRITORY BATTALION

CHIEF AND WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP TRUSTEE

Writer / Jamie Hergott Photography Provided

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT THE AVON COMMUNITY?

My parents moved our family to the Washington Township/Avon area when I was 3 years old. I grew up, went to school and lived most of my life here. What I like the most is that Avon just feels like home - so much so that my wife, who is a Brownsburg graduate, and I decided that Avon is where we wanted to raise our own family.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LOCAL AVON RESTAURANT AND WHY?

We have so many good options here in Avon, but I find that my go-to choices are Yats or Los Rancheros.

WHAT DOES A TYPICAL DAY LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?

A typical day for me depends on which job I’m working on that day. I’m a fulltime, career firefighter for Brownsburg Fire, where I serve as a battalion chief. We work a schedule that’s 24 hours on and

48 hours off, which allows me the time on my days off to work as the Washington Township trustee.

With the fire department, my job is to oversee and help manage emergency incidents. My primary role would be to act as the incident commander of any larger-scale emergencies. Aside from that, I also help manage my shift with staffing and payroll, and act as a liaison between my shift and our administration.

As Washington Township trustee, my job is to help manage and oversee all things related to township business, which includes our parks department, fire department, township public assistance, and cemetery care and maintenance.

WHAT IS YOUR FAMILY’S FAVORITE THING TO DO TOGETHER?

My boys and I enjoy going over to Parabellum. Sport shooting is a shared interest of ours and we like having a safe and local place to practice.

My wife and I like to cook at home together. Nearly every night that I’m home, we both find ourselves in the kitchen working on dinner together. We struggle, like any other family, to decide what to have each week, but we’re both pretty good cooks so once we figure out what we’re having, we normally eat pretty well.

We all enjoy traveling together. We’ve taken many good vacations together, and whether it’s a short or a long trip, we always take advantage of those opportunities to try new foods and activities.

WHAT MOTTO DO YOU TRY AND LIVE YOUR LIFE BY, AND WHY?

I’ve always tried to live my life by the motto, “Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want to have to explain to grandma.”

I have a great deal of love, respect and admiration for my entire family, and I would never want to put myself in a situation where I’ve let any of them down.

What’s your favorite book and why?

I’m not much for reading books. My wife, on the other hand, reads a crazy amount of them. I frequently joke with her that

What are your real estate needs?

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WHAT IS A FAVORITE CHILDHOOD MEMORY?

My grandparents weren’t always local, and growing up I would spend nearly my entire summer breaks with them. For much of my childhood they lived in Northwest Arkansas near Beaver Lake, and we spent countless hours out on that lake fishing, swimming and skiing. Whether it was just us, or if we had other family or friends out there with us, we always enjoyed our time out on the water together.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY DOING IN YOUR SPARE TIME?

A hobby of mine is 3D printing. It can be incredibly frustrating at times, but it’s that challenge that I like so much. There are so many things that can affect the quality of a print, so this gives me the opportunity to tinker on something in an attempt to achieve the perfect print.

WHAT’S THE BEST VACATION YOU’VE EVER BEEN ON?

I’ve had many great vacations over the years, both growing up and as an adult. To describe the single best of those vacations would be tough, but I think I can narrow it down to two different ones.

The first was when my wife and I were able to take our young boys to Disney. To see them experience the magic of Disney for the first time was really cool. To top it off, my family has always been big “Star Wars” fans and, unbeknownst to us, we happened to be there on a “Star Wars” weekend. Our boys really enjoyed the opportunity to meet and get pictures with many of the different characters that we have watched on TV.

The other vacation that stands out for me would be our latest vacation, which was a cruise down in the Caribbean. Since our boys are older now, they had more freedom to wander the ship and meet new friends. Between the activities available on board as well as in port, we all enjoyed our time together doing the different activities.

This was the second cruise that we’ve taken with our boys, and we continued our new tradition of trying some sort of food that we’ve never had before. Each night at dinner on the ship, we would search the menu and try and find something that we’d never had before, just to see what it was like. Most of it was good, but not everyone cared for everything that we tried. Fortunately there’s not a shortage of food options on board the ship, so finding something else to have was never a concern and helped encourage our little culinary adventures.

WHAT’S A UNIQUE SKILL OR TALENT YOU HAVE?

I have played the drums for over 30 years. In school I was a part of the Avon Marching Black and Gold and the Avon Drumline. I still play the snare drum to this day, now as a member and a drum sergeant for the Indianapolis Public Safety Pipes and Drums bagpipe band. We are the host band for the FDIC International conference, and we participate every year in the Indianapolis St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the day’s associated festivities. We play a variety of other events throughout the year as well, which gives me plenty of opportunity to use the skill that I developed while I was here in school.

Solution:

DOWN

1.

2.

3.

4. Injured

5. Rich (soil)

6. Luxuriate

12. Sprite

15. Blowing from sea

16. Encroachments

17. Gaping

19. Creeping plant

20. Dawn to dusk

22. Is inclined (to)