When I called him earlier this week, he was hard at work doing his research, scouring statistics, reading player bios, writing out his game notes, finishing up his depth charts.
What else would you expect from the iconic Gene Deckerhoff? It didn’t matter that he was preparing for a relatively meaningless spring game on Saturday — his final act as the legendary radio voice of the Florida State Seminoles. He could have easily just showed up at the press box, turned on the microphone and broadcast the Garnet the Gold game without anybody really knowing or caring about a lack of game prep, but that’s simply not Deckerhoff.
“I wouldn’t want my last broadcast to be a bad one,” he says.
As if the great Gene Deckerhoff has ever done a bad broadcast. He’s called 529 FSU football games over 43 years and 1,324 Seminole basketball games over 49 years and, yet, Deckerhoff, 76, is still the consummate professional. Even heading into his last spring game, after which he will turn off his mic for the final time..
At least, his FSU mic.
He will still fulfill the one year left on his contract as the radio voice of the Tampa Bay Bucs this season and then retire completely. His booming voice, his technical brilliance, his colorful storytelling, his effervescent personality, his iron-man work ethic are all qualities that have made Deckerhoff the greatest sports broadcaster in Sunshine State history.
“He’s one of the great broadcasters of our time — not just in the State of Florida but nationwide,” says legendary Orlando Magic broadcaster David Steele. “His impact is immeasurable. He’s a giant.”
Says longtime UCF radio voice Marc Daniels: “Just the way he calls a game; his level of excitement, his voice inflection, his passion, his presentation is incredible. His legacy is enormous. He had a great impact on me as a young college student when I first met Gene and then when I started calling games at UCF.”
Deckerhoff has seen it all through nearly a half-century of calling FSU football games. He started in 1979, three years into Bobby Bowden’s tenure as head coach and has called three national championship seasons, three Heisman winners, 28 bowl wins and 18 conference titles. And, oh by the way, he’s also been on the mic for 32 years with the Buccaneers and called both of their Super Bowl victories.
Deckerhoff took time out from his game prep earlier this week to reflect upon his life’s work at Florida State:
MB: When and why did you decide to finally hang up your mic at Florida State?
GD: “I started thinking about it during a long, long trip in the middle of basketball season while I was sitting in a hotel room and the weather outside was really terrible. When I got home from the ACC basketball tournament, my wife Ann and I talked. She’s been retired for 11 years and she said, ‘Honey, it’s time for you, too.’ I’m in decent health, but I’m just walking a little slower now. It’s just time.”
MB: Was it emotional when you made the decision?
GD: “I was doing fine until a few days ago as I’m walking to football practice and I passed Bobby Bowden’s statue. I looked up at Bobby and it hit me that this really was the end. I emotionally broke down and started crying.”
MB: You broadcast the Bucs and Seminoles concurrently for 32 years. Can you give me an example of how hectic your schedule was doing college games on Saturday and NFL games on Sunday?
GD: “I’d get home late after doing a Seminole night game and we’d have to get up really, really early to get to Tampa for a 1 p.m. kickoff. So I’d sleep in the back of our Winnebago motorhome while Ann drove. Except Ann doesn’t like to drive on the freeway so I’d take the wheel once we got to Crystal River.”
MB: You broadcast a lot of games, but you didn’t broadcast FSU’s first national championship (when the Seminoles beat Nebraska in the 1994 Orange Bowl). Why?
GD: “Back then, Mutual Radio had exclusive rights to the major bowl games so one of my biggest regrets is I did not get to broadcast that national championship game. I watched it from home. The good part was that when it came down to Scott Bentley kicking the field goal to win the game, I walked down the hallway and closed my eyes [laughs]. I wouldn’t have been able to do that had I been in the broadcast booth.”
MB: When you first started calling Florida State games, did you get any flak from fans for being a University of Florida graduate?
GD (laughs): “We didn’t really publicize that too much. In fact, when I was hired, my boss told me, ‘I want you to get rid of that University of Florida diploma and the class ring.‘ I don’t know whatever happened to the ring, but I think the diploma is in a closet somewhere.”
MB: You beat out a couple of big-timers to become the football play-by-play guy at FSU, didn’t you?
GD: “A number of people applied for the job and I was very fortunate to get it. Craig Sager [legendary NBA sideline reporter] and [ESPN trailblazer] Tom Mees were the two other finalists. We were all young broadcasters back then. Fortunately, I was doing FSU basketball at the time and my résumé tape had names that were familiar to FSU administrators.”
MB: Let’s do some name association, shall we? … Bobby Bowden?
GD: “If I were building a Mount Rushmore, Bobby Bowden would be the first face on it. He was ultimate human being and the ultimate football coach. There will never be another Bobby Bowden.”
MB: Jimbo Fisher?
GD: “Jimbo Fisher loved talking football and the talk show we did together was incredible. We took phone calls and nowadays coaches don’t take phone calls. We’d get a call from, say, Notepad Rick in Orlando, who would ask some technical X’s and O’s question, and Jimbo would take five minutes to explain the intricacies of a particular formation. Jimbo Fisher taught me a whole lot about the game of football, including, ‘Low man wins.’”
MB: Mike Norvell?
GD: “He’s young and bright and reminds me a lot of a young Bobby Bowden. He talks fast like Bobby did and he treats his players like Bobby did. I think he’s getting this program turned around. The dynasty may begin shortly.”
MB: Burt Reynolds?
GD: “Was one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars and one the biggest Seminole fans of all-time. He loved Bobby Bowden. He loved this university. He was an evangelical Florida State fan who spread the word about the Seminoles all over the world.”
MB: Deion Sanders?
GD: “Absolutely the best athlete I’ve ever been around. He never refused an interview. I was interviewing Deion before he was ‘Prime Time.’ Actually, he was Prime Time, he just didn’t know it yet.”
MB: Charlie Ward?
GD: “Along with Bobby Bowden, the best human being I’ve ever been around. Charlie and Bobby came out of the same peapod. If the quarterback position was played in the NFL then like it is now, Charlie Ward would have been the Patrick Mahomes of the 1994 draft.”
MB: Jameis Winston?
GD: “Ideal quarterback for the Jimbo Fisher offense and was deservedly the No. 1 pick in the draft. It didn’t work out with the Bucs, but he had three different head coaches and four different offensive coordinators. The Bucs just didn’t have the team then that we have now. I thought Jameis would play his entire career in Tampa Bay and he would become the second player in my career that I was able to broadcast all of his college and NFL games.”
MB: I guess that brings us to Derrick Brooks?
GD: “Before his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Canton, there was a reception for fans, friends, family, players and Bucs management. Derrick is at the front of the room addressing the crowd at the reception and he’s thanking everybody. And then he says, ‘I want to thank this guy right over here — Gene Deckerhoff, can you please come up here?’ So I walk up and Derrick puts an arm around me and hugs me and says, ‘This man broadcast every game I ever played in my college and pro career.’ What an honor that was for me. Derrick Brooks was the ultimate team player in the ultimate team sport. A leader on and off the field.”
MB: Steve Spurrier?
GD: “I was the play-by-play broadcaster of the [USFL] Tampa Bay Bandits for three years when Steve was the head coach. We had a great relationship and still do. But one time when the Bandits were flying back from a West Coast trip, Steve comes up to my seat, knowing I’m a Seminole, and says, ‘Gene, how much is Bobby Bowden paying [former FSU running back] Sammie Smith to play football at FSU? Nobody wants to play in that erector set in Tallahassee. He’s paying Sammie; he’s gotta be!’ I looked up at Steve and said, ‘Coach, it’s your alma mater [Florida] that just got slapped with three years of probation. Bobby’s clean; it’s your school that’s dirty’. [Laughs] Steve harrumphed and quickly walked back to his seat.”
MB: What call are you the most proud of?
GD: “For the longest time, it was the Puntrooski [against Clemson in 1988], but the catch by Kelvin Benjamin to beat Auburn for the BCS Championship [in 2013] — ‘It’s caught! It’s caught! It’s caught!’ — has moved to No. 1 on my list. No. 3 would have to be when Warrick Dunn caught the short pass against Florida and took it 80 yards for a touchdown. We needed to win that game to play for the national championship. I still remember how Warrick shifted into another gear and I said over the air, ‘He separates!’”
MB: What is your worst blown call?
GD: “[Laughs] I try to forget those. It’s sort of like the score of the 1997 Sugar Bowl when the Gators clobbered us for the national championship. It’s been erased from my memory banks.”
MB: Gene, what are you going to miss most about broadcasting Florida State games?
GD: “It’s not so much the broadcasts as I’ll miss the relationships. It may sound corny, but I’m going to miss the fans and the bond I’ve built with them through the years. I’ve had fans who grew up listening to me and their kids have grown up listening to me, too. It’s weird, but it feels like I’ve been attending my own funeral since I announced my retirement with people saying so many nice things about how they’re going to miss me.
“Some of my favorite fans are sight-impaired listeners, and their only contact with the game is that play-by-play announcer by the name of Gene Deckerhoff. They cannot see the game through their eyes so they watch the game through my eyes and my voice. I’m going to miss that.”
MB: Gene, when you retired, you said in a statement: “A life’s work that reads like a best selling novel played out on the radio. I have been blessed. Thank you, FSU.”
No, Gene Deckerhoff, thank you.
Thank you for telling us the story of the Florida State Seminoles.
In a voice that will resonate through the ages.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on Twitter @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and HD 101.1-2
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