The RoundHouse | 2/5/2024 8:39:00 AM

 Listen to the podcast

Gary Bender, a 1962 University of Wichita graduate and long-time sports broadcaster, joins the podcast to talk about his career, calling Shocker games in the 1960s and how Mary Jane Teall and Bill Parcells shaped his path.

We talk about broadcast partners such as Dick Vermeil, Johnny Unitas and John Madden. We also discuss how he created his own broadcasts as youngster to kill time while driving a tractor on the family farm.

He majored in speech and played football for the Shockers. He is a member of the 2024 Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame induction class. That ceremony is free to the public at 2 p.m. Feb. 6 in Wiedemann Hall.
 
Bender called Shocker basketball and football for KMUW as a student and started his career in Hutchinson in 1964 as sports director doing Hutchinson High games. He retired in 2011 after 18 years calling the Phoenix Suns on TV. His career in sports broadcasting put him on the microphone for almost every significant sport – karate , shark-tagging, NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, three Final Fours, the Olympics, PGA Championship, college football and play by play work with the Suns, St. Louis Rams, Chicago Bears, the University of Kansas and the University of Wisconsin.