A gift from his parents is what led Gary Dolphin to become Iowa’s best known sports radio broadcaster. Dolphin says listening to sports play-by-play on a transistor radio as a kid piqued his interest.

Dolphin has been “The voice of the Hawkeyes” doing radio broadcasts of the University of Iowa football and men’s basketball teams since 1996.

Paul Yeager of Iowa PBS and I interviewed Dolphin for the Archives of Iowa Broadcasting. Here are a few highlights of our conversation. You can watch the entire interview here.

How did you get interested in broadcasting? I remember when I was, I think eight years old, it would have been in the late ’50s, my parents giving me a little red plastic spin dial RCA transistor radio. I found it fascinating that I could lay in bed at night and just twist that dial an eighth of an inch. And there’s Ernie Harwell in Detroit doing the Tiger games, the legendary Hall of Fame, Voice of the Tigers. And then I could twist it a little bit more, and Jack Buck and St. Louis on KMOX. And then a little bit more and I get Merle Harmon doing the twins on WCCO in Minneapolis. So I fell in love with baseball at a really early age, and I thought to myself, wouldn’t that be fun to do?

What’s that relationship like for you with the Iowa players? You’re part of the family, but you’re also still the guy who has to be objective on the air. How do you walk that line with Coach Ferentz or any coach? I said to both Coach Fry and to Coach Ferentz, if we’re playing like doggy-do-do, the listener or the viewers are going to know it. I said, where are the boundary lines? How critical, how critiquing can we get? And Hayden and Kirk almost said the same thing. ‘If we’re playing badly, go ahead and tell your audience. But don’t get personal,’ and we would never single out a kid by name.

The audience may not know it, but you’re not working alone during the broadcast are you? I understand the value of your analyst, of your producer, your engineer, your spotter. We have four or five people in the booth on Saturday afternoon. It’s not just me and Eddie (Podolak) or me and Pat Anger. And those guys bust their buns to put a good product on the air. And you know, we’ve got paper flying all around, plugging our sponsors, and I’ve got a great staff to keep me on the straight and narrow.

What is it that you’re trying to do as a broadcaster during those games? There’s the old line, try to paint a picture. And so I’ve always taken that into the broadcast booth. Be your very level best. Be prepared. Give your heart and soul for the next 12 weeks, with a couple of bye weeks sprinkled in, and people are going to enjoy listening to you. And don’t make it all about the game, I talk about the events of the day as well.

How long are you going to keep working? I just turned 73 and I’ve got three grandkids. And it’s not that I have other priorities that supersede Iowa football and basketball. But you know, it’s physically (demanding), particularly basketball, where you’ve got 30 some games, and half of them are road trips, and most of them are in the middle of the night in January and February. That’s going to take a little bit of a toll mentally and physically on me, but I still love doing it. I see myself doing this, health permitting, for at least two or three more years. And you know, when I get to 75 that’s probably going to be enough. We’ll see where we’re at, at that crossroads.

What will be the lead sentence in your biography? It would probably be along the lines of small-town Iowa kid, farming community, kid makes good in the broadcast booth. You know, that’s pretty corny. But after all, corn is our number one product here in Iowa, with all due respect to pork farmers.

In addition to calling games, Dolphin is the host of the weekly radio program “Hawk Talk” where fans can call in to talk to Dolphin and Iowa coaches Kirk Ferentz and Fran McCaffrey. He also hosts weekly television coaches shows, where Ferentz and McCaffery recap the latest games.

Dolphin was named “Iowa Sportscaster of the Year” by the National Sportscasters and sportswriters Association  in 2000 and 2010.