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TheMichiganDaily — www.michigandaily.com
FootballSaturday — October 17, 2015
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Jim Brandstatter, Dan 

Dierdorf carry on 

Michigan radio tradition

By ZACH SHAW

Daily Sports Editor

Dan Dierdorf, a man who had been paid to talk 

about football for three decades and had trekked 
hundreds of miles for Michigan’s 2014 opening bout 
with Appalachian State, was speechless — frozen in 
the moment.

Below him, the band took the field, formed into its 

usual ‘M’ shape and rang in the 2014 season. The late-
summer sun glistened off the musicians’ instruments 
during the welcoming fanfare of the Michigan 
Marching Band. With a slate as clean as the cloudless 
sky above and a new Michigan football season kicking 
off in mere minutes, it wasn’t long before the entire 
stadium burst with joy.

It was a typical ritual, but Dierdorf was locked in — 

and silent.

Behind him, Jim Brandstatter was taken aback. 

Brandstatter was doing last-minute preparations for 
his debut as the play-by-play voice of Michigan football. 
The new era of Michigan football broadcasting was 
beginning, and his partner, Dierdorf, was fixated on 
the festivities below.

Surprising? Yes. Worrisome? Not to Brandstatter.
“He didn’t say a word, just took it all in — he was 

enraptured,” Brandstatter said. “To watch him really 
swallow and take in that entire moment and that event, 
to me, was great fun, and I was so happy for him that 
he had that moment. And I got to watch him fall in love 
with Michigan.”

To Brandstatter, that moment was, in a way, 

Dierdorf’s initiation. The newcomer had all the 
qualifications to be a color commentator: former 
Michigan player, former NFL player, Hall of Famer at 
both levels. Not to mention being a commentator on 
NFL’s Monday Night Football for 29 years.

He had been to the mountaintop, but had only been 

to a half-dozen Michigan games since graduating in 
1970.

“I hadn’t been in a college environment in 43 years,” 

Dierdorf said. “When I saw the band come out, I just 
got lost in the moment. I knew what it was about, but I 
had forgotten what it felt like to be a part of it.”

For 68 years, the voice of Michigan football belonged 

to just two people. Bob Ufer held the title from 1945-
81 before passing the torch to Frank Beckmann until 
he retired in 2013. So when Brandstatter switched to 
play-by-play and Dierdorf came out of retirement to 
join him in the booth in 2014, both admitted they had a 
tough act to follow.

But with nothing to lose and their careers almost 

over, the former teammates on Bo Schembechler’s first 
team are turning what could be seen as a victory lap 
into the third installment of one of the most important 
positions for the Michigan football team — its voice.

***

When Bob Ufer first began broadcasting Michigan 

football games for WPAG in 1945, it was in many ways a 
hobby. After playing for Michigan’s freshman football 
team, Ufer found his niche in track, even setting the 
world record in the 440-yard dash.

To stay healthy, he had to leave football. But in 

broadcasting, he had a chance to return, and he made 
sure to make his comeback a memorable one.

“Clearly, Ufer was the man — there wasn’t anybody 

in the same zip code as Bob Ufer,” Brandstatter 
said. “There’s no comparison to the unparalleled 
enthusiasm he had for Michigan football. Here was a 
guy out making a living at business and succeeding at it 
too, advocating himself for broadcasting, and he really 
made it his own, and when somebody does that, that’s 
a special thing.”

Whether 
it 
was 
catchphrases, 
long-winded 

soliloquies of the sheer joy of Michigan football, or an 
exuberance that made General Patton’s Jeep horn — 
used after Michigan scores — seem tame on air, Ufer 
turned a tiring job into a performance.

But it wasn’t just on game day. Ufer prepared for 363 

consecutive Michigan games with a preparation that 
would rival what the teams playing on the field below 
put forth.

Some days that meant using former assistant coach 

Jack Harbaugh’s film room to re-broadcast past games, 
others it meant scribbling notes about every player 
on 3-by-5 index cards — only 25 percent of which he 
would ever use. But every day, the passion for Michigan 
football was there.

“There was universal respect for Bob Ufer,” said 

his son, Tom Ufer, who spotted for his father in the 
mid-70’s. “We’d go to away games and see other 
broadcasters preparing things he had memorized 
three days ago. I remember (famed sports writer) Joe 
Falls would joke that you could paint a block of wood 
black, and Dad would still be able to describe what was 
happening to it for four hours.”

It helped, of course, that Michigan became the 

nation’s winningest program during Ufer’s 37-year 
run. Riding the highs of Crisler, Oosterbaan and 
Schembechler, Ufer was delectably biased, elevating 
Michigan fans with every big play and win.

“Broadcasting to some degree was changing, and 

Bob never changed. It was all Michigan all the time,” 
Brandstatter said. “When he got up in front of a 
microphone, it was like someone turned on a switch 
and he became this conduit of history. It was as if the 
Bentley Library opened and came out from Bob Ufer’s 
mouth. From Fielding Yost to Bennie Oosterbaan, the 
entire history of Michigan football would bubble up 
within him, and he would put it together with such 
prose — it was a special talent.

“You can’t emulate what he did.”
Ufer’s unwavering energy carried from his college 

days until his dying days. After a battle with prostate 
cancer that lasted years, Ufer finally called it quits 

following the Wolverines’ loss to Iowa on Oct. 
17, 1981.

He died nine days later.
“I won’t say he became more than the game, 

but he was a part of the game,” Dierdorf said. 
“When you mention Michigan legends like 
Schembechler, Canham, Crisler, he has to be on 
the list. Michigan wasn’t the only school with 
a play-by-play guy that could do that, but you 
won’t find many that had the impact that he did.

***

If Ufer made the broadcaster a part of the 

team, Frank Beckmann made the position one 
of a franchise player. A Hall of Fame broadcaster 
in his own right, Beckmann brought Michigan 
football games to the age of objectivity and 
information. But having to succeed both Ufer 
and famed Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, 
he knew better than to leave the legends behind.

“Frank had his own way of creating a special 

moment,” said Brandstatter, who did color 
commentary next to Beckmann from 1984 to 
2013. “Things that came out of his mouth, and 
they were all ad-lib type stuff, always gave the 
listener a memory.”

It could be Denard Robinson’s shoelaces 

flapping in the wind, Rueben Riley laying 
the blade down or polishing off the Heisman 
and clearing space on the mantle for Charles 
Woodson after a late interception against Ohio 
State in 1997.

Beckmann knew his listeners were the 

unfortunate ones who couldn’t be in the 
Big House, and he made sure to deliver the 
memories from inside it to the airwaves.

“It was just beautiful the way he did it,” 

Brandstatter said of the Woodson call. “I was 
the color guy next to him just listening to it, 
and I didn’t even respond. I just stood back and 

I clapped, because that was such a beautifully 
done, big-play moment.

“He had that spur-of-the-moment, special 

way of saying something that creates a splash 
that gave the play a little extra color.”

So when Beckmann resigned after the 2013 

season, Michigan was once again missing a 
member of its team and had to hold tryouts to 
replace a legend.

***

When Brandstatter speaks, shades of Ufer 

and Beckmann come out. At his weekly Inside 
Michigan Football show at Pizza House, he 
grips the table and bubbles with eagerness 
while players and coaches talk. During 
commercials, he’ll get the whole restaurant to 
wish patrons a happy birthday, and chat with 
anyone who will listen.

Playing 
for 
former 
Michigan 
coach 

Bo Schembechler from 1969 to 1971 and 
broadcasting in the area practically ever since, 
Brandstatter has long felt like a member of the 
team, but never thought he would be the next 
voice of Michigan football.

It wasn’t until the search for Beckmann’s 

replacement carried into January, 2014 that 
Brandstatter put his name in the hat. Like past 
coaching searches, the committee wanted a 
Michigan man, but there weren’t very many.

Unsure when his future broadcast partner 

would be decided and remembering the play-
by-play bug he caught in the 1970s and 1980s, 
Brandstatter pulled up his only recent play-by-
play tape — a 2003 Northwestern game when 
Beckmann was recovering from back surgery 
— and sent it in.

With his longstanding ties to the program, it 

was all the committee needed.

With Brandstatter making the switch, the 

hole in the lineup shifted to the analyst, but this 
time, then-Michigan Athletic Director Dave 
Brandon had a target in mind.

“I was done,” Dierdorf said. “I was retired 

and happy to be so. But (Brandon) called me up 
and congratulated me, then told me I was going 
to be broadcasting Michigan games. I said ‘No, 
I’m not. I’m retired.’ ”

But Brandon, a former teammate and long-

time friend of Dierdorf’s known for strong 
negotiation tactics, was persistent. After a 
slew of calls, the argument tipped in favor of 
Dierdorf making a weekly pilgrimage to Ann 
Arbor to join Brandstatter in the booth.

Like Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh coming 

back from the peaks of the NFL, the connections 
at Michigan were too strong to pass up.

“It’s a unique opportunity,” Dierdorf said. 

“I had no intention of working again, but I had 
known (Brandstatter) over 40 years and had 
nothing but fond memories of Michigan, so I 
said ‘Why not?’ ”

Added Tom Ufer: “He’s the best color guy 

out there, especially for Michigan games. 
He’s been through it all, he knows it all and 
he loves Michigan. What more could you 
possibly ask for?”

***

Coming from the Bo Schembechler school 

of humility, Brandstatter has trouble thinking 
of what his style of broadcasting is. But if one 
listens to the pair, it’s clear that the third set of 
voices of Michigan football is working.

Eighteen games in, the two still have giddy 

conversations 
about 
football, 
successful 

Michigan teams and each other. Not every 
moment has been as cheeky as Michigan’s 
current three-game shutout streak, but with 
nothing to prove, any frustration goes out the 

window as soon as they step into the booth.

“Both of us are kind of where we want to be,” 

Brandstatter said. “We’re not interested in any 
jobs after this. A few decades ago, we might’ve 
been, but right now, we just want to deliver the 
memories of Michigan football to our listeners 
— whether they’re in the car, working in their 
backyard or whatever — and have fun doing it. 
It’s not rocket science.”

Added Dierdorf: “When I was in the NFL, 

broadcasting was so much of a business. … I 
used to have to wear a suit and tie to every 
game. Now I wear a Michigan pullover and a 
Michigan baseball cap and talk football with 
my buddy. I don’t have an agenda, I’m just 
hanging with my buddy.”

It doesn’t take long to feel the friendship. 

Whether it’s marveling over the Wolverines’ 
defensive line or bantering about missed 
assignments four decades ago, a broadcast can 
feel like you’re eavesdropping on a living-room 
tailgate.

But while the two go back 45 years, they also 

have 60 years of broadcasting experience, and 
have been in the shoes of the players below.

“They’ve worn the jocks,” Tom Ufer said. 

“And people notice that and respect that. When 
they say a play was good or an injury hurts, you 
really feel it.”

With nothing left to prove or push for, it 

would be easy for the passion to fade. But 
this season, with plenty of parallels to the 
Schembechler era, there’s a special connection, 
as that year was the year both fell in love with 
Michigan, and both want to make that feeling 
possible for everyone.

“It’s in my DNA. I can feel the big games and 

the big moments, and you don’t want to miss 
those,” Dierdorf said. “It doesn’t take much to 
get Jim up either.

“It’s just who we are.”

LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/Daily

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Bob Ufer popularized Michigan radio broadcasts with his memorable calls for 37 years.

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Dan Dierdorf was an All-American at Michigan before returning to work in the radio booth.

