Question from an Indiana fan

td75 · Monday at 7:52 AM

I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

Hawkfan_08* · Monday at 7:57 AM

td75 said:
I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

Haha, yeah. That's our beloved Gary Dolphin. Great guy and a Hawkeye to every fiber in his being. He's had some massively iconic calls in Iowa history.

That said, play by play is not great but is widely just accepted at this point. Here is what I want you to imagine... you were listening to football and there are incorrect calls and sometimes a whole play will go by, right? He is also the basketball pbp. There are times where there will be possessions that we had no idea what even happened and the other team will have the ball again. He might go 5 buckets without announcing the score. It's maddening.

Palmerhawk · Monday at 8:00 AM

Dolph has a great voice for radio.
But struggles to keep up with game action at times.

Stoopsbrother · Monday at 8:06 AM

td75 said:
I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

Gary Dolphin & he's a ******* legend! move along hoosier

td75 · Monday at 8:10 AM

Stoopsbrother said:
Gary Dolphin & he's a ******* legend! move along hoosier

Believe me, he's mediocre. I know what I heard and he's lousy.

uihawk82 · Monday at 8:18 AM

td75 said:
I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

Our guy Dolphin has lost a step the last 5-10 years. He did Northwestern play by play before Iowa and has been doing this a long time. But he has slipped into some I would call lazy habits of announcing the yards gained before the official spot is shown on the score board so he is always back tracking on down and distance and it is annoying. I emailed the local Learfield Comm people who he works for and mentioned to them to have Dolph just wait for a second or two more and the scoreboard will tell him the new down and distance.

And he does another weird thing which is complaining why the officials are replaying scoring plays or turnovers when he thinks the outcome is obvious. But the Big Ten if not the NCAA mandates replays on those types of plays and have done this for many years.

But he loves the hawks which is the main positive and he is OK, not great, but ok.

EvilMonkeyInTheCloset · Monday at 8:22 AM

td75 said:
Believe me, he's mediocre. I know what I heard and he's lousy.

I hope you don't mind if I give your play by play guy a listen, and hopefully you won't feel triggered if I'm underwhelmed by him.

Again, you can tell me that's my opinion, but that's exactly what you came here to share in the first place. Good luck, new money fan.

Hawk1988 · Monday at 8:54 AM

td75 said:
I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

Dolph is a bad homer, not a serious pxp guy, more of a cheerleader. Don't you love every opposing player is 'crushed' and 'hammered' by the Hawks even if simply pushed out of bounds. Got to get him credit, he has watched this boring crap and awful schedule for a long time. Fisher is great, especially with basketball, a real pro and a legend. Dolph is a good guy but a clown. The radio miss a drunk Eddie Podalack, that guy was hilarious, half the time wasn't interested, the other half just drunk. Good times. New guy is boring as hell.

QChawks · Monday at 9:26 AM

You are telling us something we already know. He has a good radio voice but is awful at doing play by play work.

Jonesy5960 · Monday at 10:00 AM

td75 said:
Believe me, he's mediocre. I know what I heard and he's lousy.

He's the Weekend at Bernies of play by play announcers.

PeteJox · Monday at 10:05 AM

Our own fans have been complaining about him for years. He seems to have gained support from stories emerging about Fran McCaffery treating him like a diseased animal.

52317Hawk · Monday at 10:07 AM

td75 said:
I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

Let me guess, you were driving along and heard this-

"Its 1st and ten for Iowa at the OSU 45 and now is great time to purchase Iowa Seed Corn from your local Iowa Corn dealer and it's now 2nd and ten after the incompletion."

EvilMonkeyInTheCloset · Monday at 10:10 AM

Hawk1988 said:
Dolph is a bad homer, not a serious pxp guy, more of a cheerleader. Don't you love every opposing player is 'crushed' and 'hammered' by the Hawks even if simply pushed out of bounds. Got to get him credit, he has watched this boring crap and awful schedule for a long time. Fisher is great, especially with basketball, a real pro and a legend. Dolph is a good guy but a clown. The radio miss a drunk Eddie Podalack, that guy was hilarious, half the time wasn't interested, the other half just drunk. Good times. New guy is boring as hell.

Pat Angerer has personality, just no media training.

DukeSlater · Monday at 10:53 AM

td75 said:
I was driving to Florida on Saturday and tuned into the Iowa game call. Your play by play guy was....not very good.

Granted, Indiana has a Hall of Famer in the great Don Fisher and it's probably not fair of me to compare, but your guy left a whole lot to be desired. Who in the hell is he??

You are correct. Gary Dolphin was plucked out of a high school broadcast booth by Learfield Sports a long time ago when Iowa joined the national trend to sell exclusive radio broadcast rights. Iowa, like most schools, used to have a dozen or so originating broadcasts, led by Jim Zabel on WHO out of Des Moines and including Ron Gonder and Bob Brooks out of Cedar Rapids and Gene Claussen out of KXIC Iowa City. Stations from Clinton, Dubuque, Ottumwa, Burlington and several other small towns had their own broadcast teams. But for decades it's just been Gary Dolphin. He was never anywhere near the level of Zabel, Brooks and Gonder, and he's gone downhill from there.

Grayhair1981 · Monday at 10:58 AM

He is no Bob Brooks

Outbackbowl2017 · Monday at 1:20 PM

52317Hawk said:
Let me guess, you were driving along and heard this-

"Its 1st and ten for Iowa at the OSU 45 and now is great time to purchase Iowa Seed Corn from your local Iowa Corn dealer and it's now 2nd and ten after the incompletion."

Or……..

“touchdown Iowa, touchdown Iowa!” Said Dolph. “It was an incomplete pass Gary”, replied Pat. “Oh, I thought we completed that for a td, my eyes must be deceiving me”, says Dolph.

KuwaitHawk · Monday at 7:19 PM

As I have said before, give me Ron Gonder or Gene Clausen Everyday. Those two were the best.

herkhatescy2 · Monday at 8:22 PM

td75 said:
Believe me, he's mediocre. I know what I heard and he's lousy.

I've heard your guy and he's fvcking terrible.

ottumwan in tx · 2026-10-09T12:52:21-0500

Ronald Reagan used to be voice of the Hawkeyes. The great thing used to be a drunk ed podolak with dolphin. Those were the days.

IA79Cam · 2026-10-09T13:09:20-0500

Zabel was way better than

.

ottumwan in tx · 2026-10-09T13:14:56-0500

IA79Cam said:
Zabel was way better than .

One time I was in the country club by finkbine after a game , early 1990’s. I wasn’t a member but a family member was. Anywho I had heard that Zabel liked to tip a few in there after the game. I asked a server gal, “ Is Jim Zabel in here??” She said , “ who is Jim Zoblin?”” Ha ha ha I still laugh.

AFM22 · 2026-10-09T13:15:03-0500

td75 said:
Believe me, he's mediocre. I know what I heard and he's lousy.

If you think his football is rough, you should hear him call basketball games.

Question from an Indiana fan

Heisman

All-American

All-Conference

Senior

Heisman

All-Conference

Heisman

All-Conference

Heisman

Heisman

Senior

All-Conference

Heisman

All-American

All-Conference

All-Conference

All-American

All-Conference

All-Conference

All-Conference

All-Conference

Heisman