My Two Cents: It's a Rare Day When a Road Game is a Home Game

Family ties bind Indiana and Florida State for me, and the common thread for 40-plus years have been the single legendary radio voices at each school, Indiana's Don Fischer and Florida State's Gene Deckerhoff.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – I was born and raised in Indiana, and proudly have an Indiana University diploma on my wall. And Bloomington is, without question, my all-time favorite college town.

But my first job out of college was in Florida, at the St. Petersburg — now Tampa Bay — Times, so I headed south. I covered high schools when I first got to Florida, and several of the kids I covered went to Florida State to play college football. As a reporter, I made that drive from St. Petersburg to Tallahassee hundreds of times.

Living in Florida, there's a good reason why Mark Cuban is one of my all-time favorite Hoosiers. And when he found a way to listen to Indiana basketball games on the radio, then I listened, too, soon thereafter. Even from a thousand miles away, I always had Indiana radio voice Don Fischer just one click away to get my Indiana basketball fix from afar.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Bobby Bowden and the Florida State program, and I had lots of friends who were FSU season ticket holders. And when I left the newspaper business to do other things, I became a fan, too.

I've had two kids graduate from Florida State, and a third who went elsewhere but was probably still the biggest fan of the three. I'm a Seminole, too. I am, I have to admit, proficient in the Tomahawk Chop. For years, I had Florida State football and Indiana basketball as rooting interests, and never the twain shall meet with the two schools.

It was a lot like people in Indiana who root for Notre Dame in the fall and Indiana in the winter. Florida State has won three national championships in football and could have won a few more. Indiana football, we know that story. For years and years, I paid attention, but didn't really watch from afar. In the 30 years I lived in Florida, I watched three IU football games in Bloomington, and about 100 here in Tallahassee.

And when I couldn't watch a Florida State football game, I had Gene Deckerhoff in my ear, too. He's FSU's Don Fischer, a radio voice for the ages.

And those two are my guys. Both of them have been on the case for more than 45 years. Last year, when Florida State basketball played at Indiana, I made a point of getting the two of them together for a quick chat. It was tremendous.

My two guys.

HoosiersNow.com publisher Tom Brew (left) joined Florida State's Gene Deckerhoff and Don FIscher for a conversation prior to last year's Indiana basketball game at Assembly Hall

Tonight should have been tremendous too, but COVID-19 is ruining that as well. Fischer and the IU radio team aren't traveling for road games right now, and they won't be at the Donald L. Tucker Center tonight when Indiana plays Florida State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge tonight at 7:15 p.m. ET .

Fischer will broadcast the game from a studio in Indianapolis. He hates it, too, he said earlier this week. He's been AT THE GAMES for 45-plus years, so this is horrible for a veteran like him,

It's the same for Deckerhoff, who's been broadcasting from studios all fall, too. He hasn't traveled for FSU road games and he's also the radio voice of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He's been doing road games from a studio there.

"It's been terrible. It really has,'' Deckerhoff said on the phone earlier this week. 'When you've been doing this for so long, it's just not the same not being there and being part of the actual game atmosphere. It takes a lot of fun out of it, I tell you that.''

Fischer said sitting a small studio in Indiana is bad, but Deckerhoff can top that. He said he'll be doing road basketball broadcasts from the FOOTBALL STADIUM booth at Doak Campbell Stadium.

"Can you image that? Broadcasting a basketball from an empty 90,000-seat football stadium?'' Deckerhoff said. "When you do this for so long, I guess you'd like to think you've seen it all, but I guess I hadn't. This stuff, in 2020, I never expected this, that's for sure.''

The joy, of course, is that the show goes on for these two. Radio listeners across Indiana and Florida and beyond will be listening in to these two great legends. They're among the best in the business, and as someone who's listened int two both of them for 40-plus years, I'm the glad the show goes on.

"It was great to see Don last year when we got to go up to Bloomington, and it was great to be in Assembly Hall doing a Florida State game there for the very first time,'' Deckerhoff said. "I remember way back in the beginning for me, Florida State played Indiana (in December of 1975 during the undefeated season), but that was in Indianapolis.

"Don and I will see each other occasionally at awards events now and then, but It was great to catch up, even if it was only a few minutes. I'll miss not seeing him on Wednesday night at The Tuck.''

I will be inside the Tucker Center for the game, and I think I might treat myself during the first half. I'm going to set up the live stream from BOTH of them, and switch back and forth. An Indiana road game that's a home game, too. A nice deal, especially since this has never happened before. The first five meetings were all played elsewhere.

Tonight, it's two schools with close ties through the years. I'll watch with glee ... and listen.

Two radio legends, and two great guys as well. They've certainly made the last 40-plus years much more enjoyable.

Want to do the same?

• To listen to Don Fischer's broadcast on the Indiana radio network, CLICK HERE
• To listen to Gene Deckerhoff's broadcast on the Florida State radio network, CLICK HERE