Bob Ufer

Robert Pormann Ufer (April 1, 1920 – October 26, 1981) was an American track and field athlete and radio broadcaster. As an athlete, he set the world indoor record of 48.1 seconds in the indoor 440-yard (quarter mile) run and was selected as an All-American in 1943. As a broadcaster, he served as the lead broadcaster for the Michigan Wolverines football team for 36 years, starting in 1945. He was in the first group inducted in 1978 into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor along with Gerald Ford, Bill Freehan, Tom Harmon, Ron Kramer, Bennie Oosterbaan, and Cazzie Russell.

Ufer was born Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. His father was a lumber broker. An outstanding track and field athlete at the University of Michigan, Ufer set eight freshman records. At the Big Ten Conference track meet in 1942, he set a new world indoor record of 48.1 seconds in the 440-yard dash, breaking the old record of 48.2. He was a three-time Big Ten Conference champion in the indoor 440-yard dash. In 1946, a year after he began broadcasting Michigan football games on WPAG radio in Ann Arbor, Ufer came down with ulcerative colitis. Doctors ordered him to give up his broadcasting career. He agreed on the condition that he could continue to call Wolverines football games.

Ufer called Wolverines football on WPAG from 1945 to 1976 and on Detroit's WJR from 1977 to 1981. He is remembered for his exuberant, partisan broadcasting style, openly rooting for Michigan.

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