Frank Beckmann to retire after 2013
Frank Beckmann, the legendary voice of Michigan Football, has announced his retirement effective the conclusion of the 2013 season.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:41 AM ^
I will miss Frank calling the games out of nostalgia. He was the play-by-play of Michigan I listened to throughout my youth. However, with recent racial events in the NFL and Frank's past foot-in-the-mouth moments on his other radio program, it is time to move on. I basically disagree with 99.9% of his views. This retirement should have been announced months ago, so we could have vetted his replacement prior to the season.
I wish I could have 1% of the career and impact of Frank. Congrats to Frank and Go Blue.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:41 AM ^
August 9th, 2013 at 11:42 AM ^
Cigarettes were really beginning to take their toll on Beckmann's voice. Also all the fried chicken wasn't so good for him, regardless of how innovative it was.
I hope they go for some relative unknown with that natural, god given voice. He can learn everything else on the job.
I enjoyed this comment. +5.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:46 AM ^
... while I liked his broadcasts -- great radio voice -- I lost my appetite for him after his fab five quote. Just got bitter and lazy.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:57 AM ^
of Michigan football since 1981, practically my entire childhood and adult life. I used to turn the volumn on the TV down and turn the radio on just to hear his familiar voice.
Amazing career spanning 5 Michigan coaches and countless all-americans, victories over rivals, and calling some of the greatest moments of my Michigan fandom.
I will miss him.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:00 PM ^
Doug Karsch seems like he does a nice job.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:13 PM ^
Total long shot, and probably costs more than whoever pays for this is willing to pay, but Mike Tirico lives in Ann Arbor and doesn't currently do college football for ESPN. He probably has a non-compete clause, but it would be worth seeing if he had any interest as he's a really good play by play guy.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:21 PM ^
I think he and Gruden do the one bowl game a year and the rest of the season do MNF, so no travel conflicts that I see.
This would be really cool (although unlikely).
August 9th, 2013 at 12:22 PM ^
August 9th, 2013 at 12:27 PM ^
Knowing little about how broadcast sports work, how early does the broadcast team for MNF get into town? Do they really get there Saturday for a Monday game?
Even if he's not at a game site Saturday, I can imagine a ton of reasons he wouldn't want to do it, including spending Saturdays with his family, wanting to remain a TV guy, etc.
August 9th, 2013 at 11:45 PM ^
Brandstater does Michigan and Lions with no issues, and that's with a shorter turnaround time than Tirico would need.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:21 PM ^
both the school and the network holding radio rights. Doug Karsch isn't really a play-by-play guy. He's more of a anchor type and feature reporter.
The trouble is that this job rarely comes up for hire. Teams find a voice that identifies the brand and program, and he becomes a member of the household, an old friend and welcome voice.
Ideally, my choice would be Mike Tirico. But his TV schedule with ESPN as a primetime pro football and basketball announcer would probably make him unavailable and too expensive, even if he were to consider it. But I think he would be ideal.
There are probably some BTN and ESPN play-by-play guys who would apply. And I don't know if Michigan would go old school in getting the kind of homey candidate who seems to flourish in these roles. I mean when you consider Ufer and Beckmann have been at the mike for the primary Michigan moments of the Bo era to now, that is both remarkable and highly unusual.
This will not be an easy selection.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:32 PM ^
It won't be easy and I bet the selection comes out of left field. Someone on the same level as Tirico but without the same level (if any?) of PBP experience is Rich Eisen.
It will never happen though.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:29 PM ^
Whomever it is, I just hope they find a great voice that our kids will reflect fondly upon many years from now. It could be a name we've never heard before. One never knows...
August 9th, 2013 at 12:31 PM ^
August 9th, 2013 at 12:48 PM ^
Sort of. There's a lot of people for whom Tom Hemingway was the voice of Michigan Football. He only broadcast for, what, about 30+ seasons between the 60s and the 90s?
Ufer was a very humorous diversion. He was better, I think, when he was an unknown on local Ann Arbor AM radio. Before WJR hired him as a hyper-partisan Michigan clown.
Tom Hemingway's broadcasts with the late Tom Slade on WUOM were far and away the best ever. It is an unfair comparison. They were on WUOM -- public radio -- and could do the entire game commercial-free. It was a ridiculous luxury to do a complete game with intelligent, in-depth conversation and no stupid advertisements. Slade would actually talk about what the team had been working on in practice. As a former Bo QB, Slade might have been the only media guy privileged to get in.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:42 PM ^
Frank Beckmann is, to me, the voice of Michigan fooball. Always has been. I was born just a short time before Ufer died, and consequently the voice I heard calling Michigan games in the garage or the backyard or in the car on the way to the game has always been Beckmann. I think we often underrate how fortunate we are to have had him; he was good at what he did, he loved the team and the job, and he tried only to be himself.
That said, even apart from recent controversies he has been losing velocity on his fastball, and he's not as sharp as he used to be. He would have to retire soon regardless. But the controversies are real, and while they are perhaps exacerbated by the type of fanbase that Michigan has (as opposed to, say, Texas A&M) they are real and unavoidable.
Michigan football Play-by-play is not a full-time job, and Beckmann was only reasonable in pursuing that kind of job. That he found it in a rather political talk-radio format is fine. However, there is always the possibility for conflict in roles. Beckmann is "The Voice" of Michigan football, a program with as much history, fan support, and significance as any in the sport. To be "The Voice" means you have to speak to many different people of many different viewpoints. To become associated with one side of any significant controversy, no matter how just, jeopardizes your ability to speak to half (or more) of the fanbase.
To turn it around, Keith Olbermann would be just as much of a problem as Beckmann were he to be the sort to be considered. And if you have a problem with either Olbermann or Beckmann, you ought to be able to understand how many would have a problem with the other.
The beauty of sports is that it is something we can all come together and enjoy. It is less important than "real life," and perhaps that is why it works. Many of the people on this board disagree about many of the real life issues that face our lives, but when DG throws a touchdown pass, we all get to cheer together. And we thus demonstrate that we have something basic, fundamental, and human in common. Sports media personalities work in part because they generally bridge that divide. There are exceptions (Al Michaels and Bob Costas, for example, have both occasionally vocalized political views--notable also because they disagree) but for the most part when we pay attention to sports we can ignore what's going on everywhere else.
Beckmann couldn't avoid that gap. I'm glad he gets a last year to say goodbye, but I understand why there is an issue. And I look forward to the next broadcaster.
...that Olbermann is a potential candidate? Sweet.
Loved him on ESPN, got tired of him quickly at MSNBC, and he'd be a disaster to replace Beckmann. More polarizing than Frank, just in the other direction. I agree that the public voice of UM football needs to be somebody who keeps their politics separate and away from public view for the most part.
...on the fritz, Don?
...you can disagree on politics while keeping things civil.
Over the past couple years, the job description of right-wing commentator has grown to include making offensive statements, so one can complain about people being mad at them. Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, they all do it. They all know exactly what they are saying, and they say it to get those who aren't their fanbase angry, to make their fanbase ever more pleased with them. That's where right-wing talk has increasingly gone, especially since the rise of the Tea Party. In short, the nature of the job requires you to alienate and polarize, something that is completely verboten for a unifying position such as the voice of Michigan football.
The reason why Michaels and Costas can get away with things is that they express a point of view without getting offensive on a basic level. If Frank kept things civil, and kept things to common sense standards, there would be no pressure for him to exit stage right.
And sadly, because of the political right, I've lost some friends, and lost some Michigan friends, including one die-hard Republican who stopped rooting for Michigan because Denard is black (not the term he used). This kind of rhetoric and attitude is simply self-marginalizing a percentage of the American population, growing ever more disgusting to the point that everyone else tunes them out.
It's sad.
this thread is clearly political and polarizing, now calling one side racist because of one person's personal view...how has this not been locked? The only thing we all agree on is loving Michigan football.
... when registered Republican Bo Schembechler started Dennis Franklin and later rotated Michael Taylor and Demetrious Brown.
Is your friend just young, or stupid, or both? He's not much of a Republican, that's for sure.
He's young and stupid, and generally makes a big, ignorant fuss over the dumbest things to anger people over politics. Both of us are 25.
Wow. I better be careful listening to Hannity on the way home today. I wouldn't want to wake up tomorrow hating Michigan because Devin is black.
You lose all credibility when you point out all the evils of right wingers as you call them but ignore all the people on the left who do the same and worse. Beckmann never once got political during a broadcast of a michigan football game and he did a damn good job calling games for a long time. I can not remember listening to a game broadcast and hearing him say anything and cringing or think this is a embarrassment. That is what should matter not that the man has another job where he is paid to voice opinions about life and politics that you don't like.
I'm not attacking everything right-wing.
I'm simply pointing out that one job of Frank's has to be something universally accepted, and another job has to be something divisive, with the two not being completely able to mix.
This is why we have a no politics rule on the board.
Well, you did a pretty good job of unleashing the conservatives on this thread. Now it's all sticky in here.
Points come back before UTL II kicks off.
August 10th, 2013 at 1:04 AM ^
August 10th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
...with that decision. I suggest you read down a little further and either change this deduction or make a similar decision for another poster on here.
This entire post should have been taken down soon after it was posted.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:47 PM ^
is a vastly better play-by-play guy for Michigan football than either Ufer or Beckmann.
August 9th, 2013 at 12:50 PM ^
Ever since he committed I've had this weird obsession with hearing Jehu Chesson's name in the Frank Beckman voice. Every time I see the kid's name in print I hear a gravelly "Touchdown Michigan... Jehu Chesson!!!" call in my head. Just one real one and Frank's free to go.
Something makes me think Brandon will try and make a splash and we'll end up with one of the NFL regional b-team broadcasters or something.
"I did a national search. I wanted someone with play-by-play experience. He gives us the wow factor our great fans are looking for. Go Blue."
I always loved your play by play over the years. You had the toughest job in town replacing Bob Ufer which we all know every UM fan loved his "maise and blue cotton pickin" guts. There were two things I did not like about you, that was calling Doug Karsch "Crash" and you calling Jim Brandstatter "Brando" it seemed more disrespectful than playful. As for your political beliefs no comment.
Beckmann, Brandsatter and Karsch were checking into a hotel in, I think, Iowa City or maybe Minneapolis, and the desk clerk had Doug's name wrong -- as "Krasch." And it stuck.
Legendary voice! Bring him out of retirement for a few years.
Rich Eisen- a Michigan Grad. Brian Griese as color commentator.
espn trained. Great commercial with Angelo Dundee. . . One of my all time favs.
Beckmann:"I've been thinking about it for a while. it's not sad for me. I'm glad. I feel good. I've had a great run."
— angelique (@chengelis) August 9, 2013
Beckmann said the controversial @detroitnews column had nothing to do with his decision: "It was a non-issue"
— angelique (@chengelis) August 9, 2013
August 9th, 2013 at 11:52 PM ^
anything to get him away from Champion's League broadcasts