Thoughts on the Next Voice of Michigan Football (when one is needed)
So the Detroit News is reporting that there is a rumor that Frank Beckmann might challange Debbie Stabenow as a United State Senator from Michigan in 2012. Politics aside, it made me start to think about who the next voice of Michigan Football will be. I think Frank has done a great job, but even if there is no campaign/life as Senator in his future, this will be his 30th year of doing play-by-play and (unfortunately for U-M fans) he's not getting any younger. I have alwasy been a big fan of the radion broadcast. I think you get a much better idea of the personnel on the field than you do watching on TV, and I hope an eventual replacement is chosen wisely.
If a change had to be sooner than expected or down the road, anyone want to guess who that next person will be? My thoughts would be Dan Miller (he already works with Brandstatter and does football play-by-play), Dan Dickerson (Frank did the Tigers and U-M at the same time), or perhaps one of the many national sports media personalities who has a U-M background.
Also, who makes that decision. Is it the university that hires the announcers or is through their flagship station? It seems that it has to be one of the top broadcasting jobs in the nation. It is increadible that the job has been held by only two people since the mid 1940s.
I like Matt Sheppard. Not sure he's the right guy for this job, but he's a "Michigan Man"
Not sure he's right for football. His call of our spring game on BTN was a little rough.
I'd worry more about who will take over for Carl Grapentine when he calls it quits from the press box.
Since 2006. It was Howard King for 34 years before that.
Now Grapes has been involved for over 40 years introducing the band, so if that's what you're talking about....
Right, but Grapes has been around for a long time and he won't be doing it forever. Hard to relace a voice like that!
I met Carl Grapentine backstage once at a concert. He's a tremendous individual and we had an interesting conversation on the state of Michigan football; this was in midseason 2008, so we still had some flickers of hope then that 2008 would not be a total loss.
Tremendous?
Gus Johnson plz?
If I could give you a +1, I would.
Can you imagine hearing him call a fancy Denard run like this one???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHofAqyja_s
Gus Johnson makes all in the world better...
as much i would love to hear him calling our games, i fear it would take years off my life, per the law of gus.
Preach on my friend... Bill Simmons taught me all about it and I've learned the hard way over the years...
Regardless, he's awesome.
the law of gus was published just over a week before this game that gus called.
Denard takes off down the field... ha HA!
they should just have a live-feed to carl grapentine and the crowd noise.
Mickey Redmond, of course.
Oh, Mickey would be awesome. Every play would probably start with "Here they go!"
Doug Karsh? I typically like his mgoblue.com work.
Make it happen!
/ducks
/ducks
I'm actually a professional radio broadcaster. I would kill people for this job. not literally, but I'd do anything to be the play by play guy for Michigan football and basketball.
It's cool, everybody murders people, kills people for broadcasting jobs.
And killing people seems to be the only way into the business these days.
To answer the last part of your post, radio broadcasts are done through the "Michigan Sports Network" which is run by Michigan IMG Sports Marketing.
http://www.imgcollege.com/partners/imgc-mich.html
IMG is a humongous sports agency that does all sorts of deals in all sorts of sports. U of M partnered with a division of IMG called IMG College to create the network, which then hooks up with "affiliates" across the region (104.3 is the Detroit area affiliate ; it used to be WJR).
In short, Frank works for Michigan. The same is true for most team broadcasters (e.g., Mario and Rod for the Tigers). That's why it's very rare for a broadcaster to be critical of the team - the team is paying their salary.
Thanks, that interesting. It makes sense now that you say it. There are enough referrences to the Michigan Sports Network throughout the broadcast.
It seems like often they are personalities taken from the flagship station: Beckmann from WJR for both U-M and the Tigers and Dickerson taken from WJR when they still had the Tigers. I suppose that has a lot to do with familiarity though, and it doesn't really carry over to other examples I can think of, such as hockey (wasn't Ken Kal doing U-M hockey before he took over for Bruce Martin?).
what's johnny miller doing these days? (not the pompous former golfer).
Please tell me somewhere we have a copy of Keith Jackson's DNA. Once it is possible to do this, I suggest we clone a new Keith Jackson every time the old one has to retire. Maybe two Keith Jacksons, so we have one for TV and one for radio at all times.
Hell, if we're using cloing technology to come up with Michigan football broadcasters, let's clone Ufer. That horn he used to blow has to be lying around somewhere....
We couldn't get James Earl Jones for the CRISP lady but maybe we could pull him for the play by play.
Being that, in effect, the function of the US Senate is to screw things up really bad, also being that the last ten years or so have seen a solid foundation laid in that regard, I wouldn't think Frank would have too much difficulty finding free time on Saturdays.
Hire a WCBN guy! THIS GUY! HIRE ME!
To quote Beckmann, our pool of candidates should include "No racists!"
You can't beat Roy Roundtree's Donald Duck voice.
That guy has the voice of angel, it's like the first time I heard the beatles. And he'll give the first 1000 fans a discount on deli meats and half gallons of country fresh milk, because, he's with us....
Gilbert Gottfried.
Dan Miller I'll be alright... I can hardly listen to a Lions game on the radio because of this doucheknuckle.
You can tell in the way he says that phrase that he actually thinks he has something special with it.
He seems to want to get into broadcasting now that his playing days are over. He certainly has the passion for the school.
Not a bad idea but the guy clearly needs some seasoning and wouldn't he likely be more of a color guy (replacing Brandy with another former M linemen) than a play-by-play guy.
Wayne Larrive.
He is currently the play by play guy for Green Bay Packers radio. Also, he is on the #2 broadcast team for B1G Network.
He has had a litany of other jobs around the midwest (Chicago Bulls former play by play guy).
He is good but would he leave the Packers?
He went to Michigan. For awesome defensive stops he could break out a little Darth Vader.
Fran Drescher.
He likes Michigan, he's from Michigan. He spent about ten minutes lobbying for our basketball team to make the tournament near the end of the season. I'm sold.
Probably out of our price range. It'd be great, but not realistic.
Also, Gus is going to be doing football for BTN now so his Saturdays are booked.
CONER!!!!
Are we the only college program or even professional franchise that employs a play-by-play man whose day job is to host a highly political radio show? I would not be at all surprised if we were. The whole thing seems rather inappropriate as it's asking a lot to separate the gigs since they are both highly public.
For this reason, I welcome Frank Beckmann's exit of Michigan Stadium's broadcasting booth.