CRAWFORD | Don Fischer, the voice of the Hoosiers, revels in Indiana’s Rose Bowl rise | Sports

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (WDRB) – Don Fischer doesn’t sound like a man who’s called more bad football than just about anyone in America.

He sounds like a man in love with his job. Especially standing in a hotel ballroom on Rose Bowl media day.

“I’m loving this,” he said, “for all of our fans, for the years that they spent in the stands with 20,000 people, maybe, or 25,000 people in the stands, that came every ballgame and spent all the money for the tickets and all those kinds of things. I'm just happy for those people.”

But as a media guy who has covered maybe a fraction of the frustration that Fischer has described play by painful play for a half-century, I can’t help but be happy for Fischer.

For 52 years, he has been the “Voice of the Hoosiers.” Through national basketball titles. Through Bob Knight. Through bowl-less football decades. Through 1-11. Through 0-11. Through Purdue games that felt like dental procedures.

Through all of it, Fischer has been the soundtrack of Indiana winters. Steady. Professional. Trusted. And remarkably good at what he does.

He is the rare broadcaster inducted into both the Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame and the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame. He has been voted Indiana Sportscaster of the Year a record 28 times. He has called more than 2,000 IU games — including three NCAA men’s basketball national title wins, and now 12 bowl games.

His career wasn’t lacking. He was on the call for Keith Smart’s jumper, the last unbeaten season in college basketball history and every point Calbert Cheaney ever scored. This year, he got to add Fernando Mendoza to Omar Cooper in State College to that list.

And on New Year’s Day, Fischer will sit behind a microphone for the Rose Bowl for the first time in his career. No. 1 Indiana faces No. 9 Alabama. The College Football Playoff quarterfinals.

It’s happening. And Fischer will be there to describe it, for a program many thought could never reach this height, and a fan base that never stopped listening.

‘A renaissance for Indiana football’

You can hear it in his voice when he talks about this run.

“It’s been a renaissance for Indiana football, to say the least,” Fischer said. “A program that has always struggled to be good.”

That’s putting it kindly. When Indiana won seven games in 1994, it didn’t have another winning season until 2007. Then came another dry stretch, until Tom Allen pushed the program forward in 2019 and 2020.

Then came Curt Cignetti.

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

“After three winning seasons since 1994, all of a sudden, we've got two straight years of fantastic football under one of the best coaches I've ever been around,” Fischer said. “And that's saying something, because I was around one of the best in Bob Knight over those years. But this guy is phenomenal.”

Fischer paused there. It’s the kind of praise he doesn’t hand out lightly.

“It's just been so much fun,” he said. “And you know, at my age and the era that I'm in at this point, it's one of the most wonderful things that's ever happened to me.”

A moment that’s taken a lifetime

Fischer was 26 years old when he started calling IU football games in 1973. It was six years after Indiana’s lone Rose Bowl trip in 1967.

So for all the moments and players he’s broadcast -- from Quinn Buckner, Isiah Thomas, to Antwaan Randle El and Tevin Coleman -- he has never described an Indiana team playing on a stage like this.

“I'm going to get a chance to be in a Rose Bowl game for the first time in my career,” Fischer said. “And it's special.”

Even "60 Minutes" thought so. When CBS came to Bloomington to tell the story of Indiana football’s miraculous rise, Fischer was one of the voices they sought out.

Because of course he was.

He’s been through all of it.

‘Never seen anything like this’

Fischer has long spoken with admiration about Bill Mallory’s era in Bloomington, when IU football clawed its way to respectability with physical play and team-first culture. But Cignetti, Fischer said, has created something new and lasting.

“We've never seen anything like this,” he said.

He meant more than wins and rankings. He meant organization. Discipline. Intelligence. Big-picture thinking. All of it, at long last, coming together at Indiana.

“From my standpoint, and having been around this program for a long time … the insights you get being around somebody this smart, and this staff, and how they go about their business, I don't want to say it's unique, but it feels that way,” Fischer said.

Fischer knows there are many fans just like him, who have been there for all the botched snaps and difficult seasons. So he knows the feelings of many thousands who will listen to his description of the game.

“It’s been a blessing,” Fischer said, “to say the least.”

And you can count on Fischer to say it well.