Hall of Fame Moment for Behler
The "Voice of the Broncos" will be inducted to the Bucknell Athletics Hall of Fame this weekend as he gets set to call the Boise State at Notre Dame game
Chris Kutz
Being inducted into a Hall of Fame is an honor.
But calling a game at Notre Dame is a can’t-miss event for Bob Behler.
Behler, the “Voice of the Broncos” on the Boise State radio airwaves since 2008, has called 472 college football games in his 40-year career as a college broadcaster.
He’s actually been calling sports since graduating from the University of Georgia in 1985 for 42 years. He spent one-and-a-half seasons in minor league baseball with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, broadcasting half of the 1985 campaign and all of 1986.
His first college job, though, was at Bucknell, where he called 138 football games for the Bison from 1986 to 1999.
Yet, this Saturday’s game between Boise State and the No. 21 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, which can be heard on the Bronco Radio Network and watched on NBC/KTVB 7 at 1:30 pm MT/3:30 pm ET, is one Behler wouldn’t miss.
Even if it meant missing a Hall of Fame induction for himself.
“I don’t miss games,” said Behler. “I wish it could have lined up with a bye, but you don't do 13 years at stadiums in the Patriot League from 1986 to 1999, work your butt off and then turn down to do a game at Notre Dame.”
In addition to the big game in South Bend this week, Behler’s weekend also includes being inducted into the Bucknell Athletics Hall of Fame. He of course will not be there for the ceremony, but he did record a “thank you" message a couple weeks ago in Bronco Studios in his place.
The decision to miss the Hall of Fame ceremony and dinner was not ideal for Behler. He found out when he was duped into recording a “podcast” over Zoom in July. When he logged on, there were four people from Bucknell, including a retired associate athletic director who hired Behler, and his wife, Theresa. What was supposed to be an interview turned into a nice moment of surprise as they all informed him of his hall of fame induction.
Bucknell’s criteria to be considered for its Hall of Fame is to make outstanding contributions in one of three areas: a superior competitor, a teacher-coach with a distinguished record, or a person who has made a long-term, exemplary contribution to Bucknell Athletics. The Hall of Fame considers athletes and staff, and there’s not always a staff member in each class. This year, though, Behler made it through.
Behler was a trailblazer for Bucknell. His contributions are still felt today.
Behler arrived in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in the fall of 1986. The town of 10,000 or so was home to Bucknell, a campus nestled on the west bank of the Susquehanna River in the central part of the commonwealth.
“If you're playing darts with the map of Penn., it's pretty much bullseye,” said Behler on the location of Lewisburg. “You're two hours from nothing and three hours from everything on the east coast. A town where you had to make your own fun, and there were enough young people there working for the athletic department and for the school. It was a great group of people to be around if you're 23 years old.”
He did the last game for Chattanooga on Labor Day night on September 1, 1986, drove north, and was in town for the first football game of the season on September 13.
Behler was behind the mic of Bucknell’s first Patriot League game in 1986, a thriller in which Bucknell trailed Colgate 39-25 in the fourth quarter but rallied to take a 40-39 lead with 52 seconds left. Colgate drove the length of the field, set up for the game-winning field goal with four seconds left, but bobbled the snap and attempted to complete an impromptu pass play. The pass attempt was completed, but Bucknell defensive back Robert Hawkins dragged down the receiver at the nine-yard line to preserve the historic and thrilling win.
He witnessed the Bison win their first league title in 31 years by winning five of its last six games in 1996, including a 28-27 overtime victory over Colgate in the season finale. Rich Lemon, the Ashton Jeanty of Bucknell’s running back history, ended his Bison career that year by helping the school to the Patriot League title. Lemon ended his college career with 4,742 rushing yards, nearly 2,100 more than the previous record holder.
Behler was also part of a 10-win season in 1997, which still stands as the most wins in a season in program history. Of the 10 wins, seven were by seven points or less - a broadcaster’s dream when it comes to calling exciting games.
He called games that featured Greg Schiano, a former NFL head coach and current head coach at Rutgers, and worked alongside people such as Brian Baldinger, an 11-year NFL veteran who currently works as an analyst for the NFL Network.
“(Baldinger) had just retired from the Eagles, and he had done basically what I did,” said Behler. “Cold called, sent notes out to people out that he was looking to do some color. And I met with him over the summer. I said, ‘Listen, we pay like, 75 bucks a game.’ And he said, ‘Oh, no, no. I just want the experience.’”
His time at Bucknell took him to the likes of Franklin Field at Penn, a stadium built in the late 19th century; to Towson, where he was stationed on the roof but under a tarp that only protected him from the rain if it fell straight down; and to Harvard, a large, historic stadium that is a bucket-list item of its own.
In addition to broadcasting football and basketball on the radio, Behler created himself a full-time, sustainable job in the Bucknell athletic department by selling ads for use during his broadcasts.
In his second year at Bucknell, he leveraged more ad space by creating a TV show played on regional sports networks in the area.
“We had the show on TV in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, New Jersey - we were in most of the markets in the east,” said Behler about the reach of his project.
The pioneering effort required Behler to film the show on a Tuesday, mail the three-quarter inch tape on Wednesday and have it air across the east coast on Thursdays during football and basketball season. It also extended the Bucknell brand outside of the small town of Lewisburg.
“Bob is a true pioneer when it comes to the promotion of Bucknell's student-athletes,” said Jon Terry, Bucknell’s Associate Director of Athletics and Director of Athletic Communications. Terry first met Behler when Terry was a student. Terry was the sports editor for the school newspaper and also served as the public address announcer for some football and basketball games.
“Many of the broadcasting elements that we are doing today through modern technology, Bob was doing in the 1980s and 1990s through sheer ingenuity and effort,” added Terry. “He convinced the powers that be that if he could go out and sell advertising to cover the cost of his (very modest) salary, that we would expand to men's basketball. Pretty soon he was assembling a crew of student videographers to shoot game highlights, and he rented studio space to produce a weekly coaches show, which he then distributed to cable companies in major cities.
“All of the sudden, this small school in rural Central Pennsylvania was reaching millions of homes through radio and television.”
Born and raised in Stockton, Calif., Behler claimed he never was a good athlete growing up, but like many, he loved watching and listening to games. He would fall asleep as a kid to a transistor radio broadcasting games of his favorite team, the San Francisco Giants. He took the passion and experience and turned it into working for his high school’s television station and calling games that were played back in black and white after they were over. He got his first paid gig as a broadcaster in the early 1980s, working the NorCal basketball championships as a late fill-in for the normal play-by-play guy who could not make a 3 p.m. tip-off one day. He was a local businessman, and had other business to tend to. Behler was not going to miss the opportunity.
All of it taught him important lessons for later on. Behler never stopped grinding while at Bucknell. He would bring a cameraman out to other sports, such as soccer, field hockey and volleyball, and then distribute VHS tapes to parents, “who were thrilled to see their kids on a real ‘televised’ broadcast,” said Terry.
He prepped for every sport, and even though he has called College Football Playoff games and NCAA tournament contests, he treated them all the same. It is what makes him a Hall of Famer as he gets set to call a one-of-one game at Notre Dame - and his 493rd college football game overall.
“He has gone on to do great things at UMass and Boise State, but whenever we talk he always wants the scoop on how the Bison are doing,” said Terry. “We love to celebrate our history at Bucknell, and even though he never made a tackle or grabbed a rebound, Bob Behler is as big a part of our Athletics legacy as anyone.”
