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Jim Zabel Passes Away

T

The Outsider

Legendary Iowa sportscaster Jim Zabel passed away at his Scottsdale, AZ home on May 23 at age 91. He was hired by WHO Radio in Des Moines in 1944 and became sports director in 1950. He did play by play for Iowa Hawkeyes football and basketball on WHO for 49 seasons and was known for his entertaining, at times over the top announcing style. He also served as the primary sports anchor on WHO-TV for 30 years. Although Zabel was technically retired, he maintained a presence with WHO until the day he died.

At the time of his death, he was doing prep work for his Sunday night WHO radio show.
 
This is certainly late in being posted, but I recall picking up delayed broadcasts of Iowa football games on WHO late on Saturday nights in the early 1960's inwhich Jim Zabel did the play-by-play. I have never learned why these games were aired on that station on a delayed (from Saturday afternoon) basis, but it certainly allowed me to hear his calls of the Hawkeyes.
 
Cincinnati Kid said:
This is certainly late in being posted, but I recall picking up delayed broadcasts of Iowa football games on WHO late on Saturday nights in the early 1960's inwhich Jim Zabel did the play-by-play. I have never learned why these games were aired on that station on a delayed (from Saturday afternoon) basis, but it certainly allowed me to hear his calls of the Hawkeyes.
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Why, so you can hear the games in Cincy via that wonderful skywave signal. The Iowa snowbird contingent in AZ also benefitted from the late-night replay.

They still do this, by the way, although its importance has been dimmed by Internet streaming.
 
In the 1960's, I also listened to Drake University basketball games on WHO. As those games were usually played at night, the broadcasts were live. I don't recall who the play-by-play man was for those. The Bulldogs had some very good teams back then, making it to the NCAA Final Four in 1969.
 
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