After decades getting ‘ready for the boom,’ Hawkeye Marching Band’s golden voice ready for goodbye

IOWA CITY — In November of 1980, with Hayden Fry wrapping his second season as University of Iowa head football coach by downing Michigan State 41-0, a question haunting Hawkeye fan Lou Crist compelled him to pick up the phone.

“I thought I would call the director of the marching band and see if, by chance, he needed a public address announcer,” Crist, 87, told The Gazette from a chair in the living room of the Oaknoll unit he shares with his wife, Jan, of 64 years.

“It turned out that they did.”

Crist — 42 at the time — was uniquely qualified for the role, having played a baritone in the band himself the 1950s before graduating in 1960 with a UI degree in speech and dramatic art.

“I’m not an actor,” Crist said of his plans for that degree. “So I knew that it was going to be in the area of talking or announcing.”

Postgraduation, Crist built his broadcast resume through stints at WHO in Des Moines in 1961, KGLO in Mason City through 1965, and WOI-TV in Ames into the 1970s until the pull of his alma mater grew too strong.

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“We hoped we could get back to Iowa City,” Crist said. “And that opportunity presented itself when I went with the Iowa Regional Medical Program.”

The move required a career change, but Crist was up for it — serving as a liaison for the federally-funded program out of the UI Carver College of Medicine, where he landed a permanent job even after grant funding dried up.

But he couldn’t deny his affinity for broadcast and his jovial voice — even when he was diagnosed with bone cancer shortly after calling band director Morgan Jones in 1980 about the announcing gig.

“I thought, well, I need to call Morgan and tell him what's happened and see what his thoughts are and say, ‘If he thinks that it would be well to have somebody else take over the announcing, I certainly would understand that’,” Crist said, recalling the phone call 45 years ago.

Jones’ response was, “Why? Did it harm your voice?”

“And the answer, of course,” Crist said, was “Well, I don't think so.”

‘Losing a leg’

It was in early 1981 that Crist started having pain in his left leg that brought him to the doctor and led to the discovery of a cancerous tumor above his knee. At the time, he said, the best option was amputation — so Crist underwent surgery on March 12.

“I was very concerned about losing a leg, certainly,” he said.

Excited as he was about the idea of announcing for the band, Crist said he felt obligated to share his life update with Jones at the risk of losing the volunteer opportunity.

“The response he gave, I thought, was very, very important to my psyche and how I continued on with things,” Crist said.

But as much as the band gave Crist over the years — including purpose and distraction early on, a front-row seat to his favorite team in the decades that followed, connection to his college days in the band, and too many meaningful relationships to count — Crist gave back a lot too.

“Lou is an absolute icon, and our alumni and current band members cherish him,” Hawkeye Marching Band Director Eric Bush said.

Joining the Hawkeyes on the cusp of the golden Hayden Fry era — accompanying the Hawkeyes to the Rose Bowl in his first season at the mic after decades of losing records and just two bowl invites in 80-plus seasons — Crist might have brought some good luck too.

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“Somebody I was working for said, ‘Boy, you've been the answer to this’,” Crist joked about the run the Hawkeyes went on after he started — making a bowl in 35 of 44 seasons, including the first eight — following what had grown to a 22-year bowl drought prior to Crist’s arrival.

But after four-plus decades, more than 30 bowl games, and trips to 34 cities in 15 states, Crist is on the cusp of retirement.

“I’ll do the first game,” he said of the Hawkeyes’ home opener against the University of Albany on Aug. 30. “And then I’m out of it. I’m done.”

In search of his successor, the Hawkeye Marching Band earlier this year issued a call for applications and received nearly 40 “very talented applicants,” Bush said. A committee then narrowed down the pool to six finalists, who each will announce for the band at one of the remaining six home games in Kinnick Stadium this season as a sort of tryout.

“We will select the new Golden Voice of the Hawkeye Marching Band following the conclusion of the season,” Bush said.

‘Ready for the boom’

Announcing for the band is an all-day commitment during home games — from morning rehearsal, the Rec Building show, pregame announcing, and the half-time performance. The golden voice participates in Friday dress rehearsals and postseason games, public showcases, the band banquet, and Band Extravaganza.

They must write original scripts for games and special performances. And listed among qualifications for the “ideal candidate” is “a strong vocal presence and ability to deliver live narration with clarity, enthusiasm, and authority.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Crist would say before black and gold-clad drummers would lead the 285-strong band onto the field in Kinnick Stadium on fall Saturdays in Iowa City. “It’s time to get ready for the boom!”

Although some band announcers sit with the band down by the field, Crist found it easier to stay in the press box with his prosthetic — although few people knew, given he usually wore long pants. Jan Crist, though, did sit with the performers — serving for years as the band’s “on-call nurse.”

One time in New York she found herself caring for a “brand-new diabetic” just learning how to care for himself. Another time a cheerleader’s hernia surgery developed a hematoma at the incision.

“There were times when a student had to go to the emergency room or something, and so I would be the one that would go to the emergency room with them,” Jan said.

Crist’s core memories from his decades introducing the band include his first Iowa-Iowa State game in Ames.

“Kids were coming in from Iowa State early to get their seating, and they were bringing in all kinds of signs — some that you'd not want to necessarily publicize — like ‘Beat Iowa’ and everything was to humiliate the Hawkeyes.”

There was the 1985 game pitting No. 1-ranked Iowa against No. 2-ranked Michigan — with the Hawkeyes pulling out a last-second field goal to win. And the unique melding of the Iowa, Ohio State bands for a combined show in 2022 — performing a tribute to Elton John.

“How unique is that?” Crist said. “How many times would you have two university bands performing a half time together?”

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‘Call it a day’

In all his years, Crist missed just one game — after falling in his wet garage while on crutches in September 2008.

“I had bought a birthday present for Jan, and she was taking a shower, and so I thought, I'll go out and get it out of the car,” he said. “And I was using the crutches … and the crutches went out this way, and I fell and came down on the residual limb, so had some problems, and I did miss one.”

But even today, heading into retirement, Crist said he’s not tired of the hype and the hoards of Hawkeye fans and the charge to “fight for Iowa.”

“We always look forward to football in Iowa City,” he said. “It wasn’t until the last couple of years that I was having more trouble with getting around. I also felt that I was losing some of my sharpness.”

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Band members and staff — even director Bush himself — would help, getting Crist a golf cart for transport from the Rec building run-through to Kinnick Stadium.

“Last year, when we were at the bowl game, we got all of our stuff off of the bus and were headed to our rooms in the hotel, and here is Eric Bush pulling (Lou’s) suitcase,” Jan said. “The director of the band. And I said, ‘We don't have to have the director of bands do this for us.’ But he says, ‘I don't have anything else to do’. Talk about help. We had help.”

Crist was impressed too, asking, “Just how many directors of marching bands of major universities do you think are helping the announcer with his luggage?”

Following the bowl game in Nashville last season, the band stopped in St. Louis to get something to eat and Bush came upon Crist trying to get into his car from his scooter.

“And he came right along, and he sort of comes right up against me on the left side and I said, ‘I think I can make it OK. Thank you,” Crist said. “And he said, ‘Well, I'll be damned if you're gonna go down on my watch’.”

Crist said he felt the same way and already had plans to “call it a day.”

“I said all along that I appreciated what the band was doing, but I did not want it to become a case where people would have to worry about me more than all the other things that go into running a 285-person marching band,” he said.

It was important to Crist to leave on his own terms — but the band isn’t letting him slip out the door without a proper goodbye. For his final game announcing in August, the band is planning to honor “The Legacy of Lou Crist” by playing “Blues in the Night” — just like he performed with the band in 1959.

“His name will forever be embedded into the history of the Hawkeye Marching Band,” Bush said.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com