Don Fischer Embarks on 50th Year as Radio Voice of IU
Writer / Ryan Kennedy
“To tell you how much of a fool I was 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.”
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.
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.
From Railroad Clerk to Radio Legend
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. 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.
Building a Broadcasting Career
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.
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.
A Legacy of Excellence
Fischer has broadcast more than 2,100 Indiana University games. Included in that number are:
- 12 bowl games
- 5 NCAA basketball Final Fours
- 4 NCAA championship games
- 2 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.
The Evolution of Broadcasting
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.”
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.
Memorable Moments
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.”
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.”