Getting Stuck with Krash

This season longtime local sports radio voice, M sideline reporter, & mgo-misc. host Doug Karsch will co-anchor the Michigan radio network Tailgate Show with former U-M All-American Jon Jansen. Karsch will also continue his sideline reporting duties as part of the play-by-play broadcast. I’m pulling together a piece on the new show and recently chatted with Karsch. Listeners of the radio broadcast know that Beckmann & Brandy referred to Karsch as “Krash”. I never knew why, admittedly never asked, but either way, I never really cared for it. I’m not sure why – I figured it obviously had something to do with Doug’s last name and I guess I assumed Frank or Brandy just thought it was funny to call him Krash. Meh. Anyway, when I chatted with Doug recently I asked him about the nickname and if ‘Krash’ was going to endure in Frank’s absence. Here’s what Doug told me: “I’ll tell you how it started and what’s funny is that I’ve been broadcasting since 1993 and I get asked more about that than anything else. It was my first year doing sideline, it was 2006 and Michigan had a game at Minnesota. The whole team arrives [at the hotel] and I was the last to check in. I was a rookie and I’m just waiting. The team checked…

Last week we learned that the new radio broadcast team will be former U-M teammates Jim Brandstatter and Dan Dierdorf. The big news is that Brandy is shifting over a seat to do the play-by-play, with DD handling the color commentary. I confirmed with Doug Karsch that he will remain is his previous role handling the on-field duties. I kinda hope Karsch would get the nod to be in the booth (in one role or another) but it’s hard to argue with the Brandy-DD team. Heck, I didn’t even know Dierdorf was an option. You might know that Brandy stepped in to handle the radio play-by-play back in 2003 for the Northwestern game, but that’s not actually the first time he performed those duties during a Michigan football game. It turns out that was way back in 1980…on TV. Recently Steve “Dr. Sap” Sapardanis shared with me the details of Brandstatter’s first shot calling the game: In 1980, Larry Adderley and Jim Brandstatter were all set to call the Michigan-Notre Dame football game from South Bend, Indiana for a local cable TV outlet. Adderley, who had just finished 5 years as the host of Michigan Replay with coach Bo Schembechler, would unfortunately come down with laryngitis just before kickoff. He made a valiant effort to do the play-by-play, but…