Brandstatter's Audio Treasure Trove: 'Voices of Michigan Stadium'
Retired voice of Wolverine football provides history treat with garage tapes of everyone from the first player to score a touchdown at Michigan Stadium to Harbaugh
Author Jim Brandstatter (left) with Michigan teammate and broadcast partner Dan Dierdorf.
Photos Courtesy of Jim Brandstatter
By Steve Kornacki
Jim Brandstatter shared this thought: “You shouldn’t retire from something. You should retire to something.”
And so, after 43 seasons of calling 515 University of Michigan football games and walking away from that in 2021, Brandstatter said he had a plan.
He had the recorded interviews from his two books, “Tales From Michigan Stadium,” Volume I and II, in stacks of file boxes in the garage at his home in suburban Detroit. As much as he enjoyed writing those, Brandstatter thought it would be intriguing to create an audio book from his treasured conversations.
“Voices of Michigan Stadium” is now available as both an audio compilation and the printed version he said Amazon insisted on also having. Both are available at JimBrandstatter.com and Amazon.com.
There are nine parts to the book:
Prologue and Back in the Day
Plays and Players
Moments
Hayes, Ufer & The Boss
Games & the ’69 Upset
Bo and Staff Stories
The Band and More
Bo – In His Own Words
The Michigan Experience and Epilogue
The late Bo Schembechler – Brandy’s own coach whom he went onto cover like nobody else – and his thoughts on the Big Ten athletic directors voting to send Ohio State to the Rose Bowl after their 10-10 tie in 1973 really stands out to Brandstatter.
He recalled Bo’s words: “Till the day I die, I’ll be bitter about the vote!”
Then he added, “To read and hear that quote isn’t even close.”
Hearing the passion and pride in the voices of all these Wolverines is what sets “Voices of Michigan Stadium” up as a special collection to savor.
Brandstatter said: “You get to hear Desmond Howard talk about his Heisman pose, saying, ‘I don’t even think Mo [Coach Gary Moeller] knew I did it!’ And when Mo found out, he said, ‘I wish he hadn’t done it.’ And you hear Ron Kramer, Rick Leach, Butch Woolfolk and the guy who scored the first touchdown at Michigan Stadium, Kip Taylor!”
Howard also explains how his dramatic, fourth-down touchdown catch against Notre Dame in 1991 was “kind of a mistake.”
Brandy used to tend bar along with Michigan All-American and Green Bay Packers star Kramer at Wolverine athletic director Don Canham’s parties the night before games. It was there that he met Taylor, who tallied those first points in the Big House on Oct. 1, 1927.
Brandstatter said: “Kip Taylor was as lucid as he could be: ‘I’m running down the field, and I’m running down the field. And Bennie Oosterbaan is running down the field and they keep throwing it to him, and he’s being covered by three guys! I understand that because Bennie’s a great player (and a three-time All-American). But I’m wide open!
“So, I went back to the huddle and told them to throw the ball to me. I’m wide open. The quarterback (Louis Gilbert) looked at me and said, ‘Shut up, you dumb sophomore.’ So, OK, I shut up.’ ”
Brandstatter finished the story: “Two plays later, he gets the ball, makes the guy miss and scores the first touchdown ever at Michigan Stadium. It’s unbelievable.”
He continued, “I’ve got Bo’s pre-game speeches, (John) Wangler talking about Anthony (Carter) coming up to him in the huddle against Indiana, saying, ‘Get the ball to me.’ Braylon Edwards talking about his Michigan State game.”
Brandy really loves the interview he did with the late Howard Wikel, an Ann Arbor pharmacist who became a confidante to Wolverine coaches and players as a program booster. The meat of that piece is Wikel talking about Fritz Crisler replacing Harry Kipke as Michigan’s coach after the 1937 season, forced out by Athletic Director Fielding H. Yost after posting a 10-22 record in his last four years.
“Howard talks about how Tom Harmon nearly left Michigan with Kipke,” said Brandstatter. “But he recalled Kipke telling Harmon and others: ‘No. You guys stay here.’ So, Fritz got handed an All-American roster.”
Harmon won the Heisman Trophy in 1940, and Crisler eventually won a national championship in 1947.
Brandstatter wrote, narrated and produced his audio book.
It’s the classic labor of love by a man who never tires of bringing us stories on the Wolverines.
Thank goodness for that.
