The only tractor big enough to work the fields that my dad ever owned while I was growing up was a 656 with no cab and the world's loudest fender-mounted radio. That thing could pick up a signal, too.
We must be the same age because I asked the same question at the same time. When my dad told me that it was short for "Isaiah Moses Hipp," I couldn't decide which version was more cool. When you're first exposed to a name like that over radio, versus seeing the guy in a picture or on TV or in person, the name conjures images that often didn't match reality. Jarvis Redwine was another one of the coolest names that I'd ever heard, but when I finally saw him on TV, I was disappointed to realize that he wasn't 7' tall and faster than a cheetah. He seemed larger than life on radio. He was a great player, but man, that name.
I can remember walking down the old Main Street of Yankton, SD, on game day with my mom when I was probably about 6 years old, and EVERY store had the game on, and most had it so that you could hear it in the street. When I was 10-14 years old I had a paper route that I delivered on bike. The houses were too spaced out to hear the whole game, but I knew which guys would be listening to it, so I'd stop and ask for updates as needed, and sometimes I'd stop and listen if it was a tense moment. I heard the Irving Fryar "Bounce-arooski" play to Mitch Krenk on the radio while standing next to the fence in a yard that had the game going on the radio on a porch. He kept describing it, over and over, and I was having a difficult time imagining how it was possible to purposefully throw a pass into the turf so that it would bounce into the other's players hands so that he could throw it. I saw it on the game highlights later, and then it made sense, but it was still impossible to figure out how to throw a ball to make it do that.
As for getting psyched up after the game and wanting to go outside and re-enact it, Turner Gill was almost always the guy that I wanted to imitate. I was 10 years old, working endlessly on my reverse pivots, ball fakes, and left-hand option pitches. The other player that I fell in love with on the radio was Jeff Smith. We were beating the tar out of Iowa in '82 when he came in late in the game. My dad knew all of the players, where they were from, backstories, etc., so he paused while working on his pull-type combine to tell me, "Hey, this kid's just a sophomore, out of Wichita. He's supposed to be fast." His first carry of his career, he went 80 yards for a touchdown against Iowa while my dad and I were standing there, leaning against the tractor, listening intently. He was forever my favorite RB after that. I was probably the only Nebraska fan alive who wasn't related to Jeff Smith who was excited to see him come into the '84 Orange Bowl when Rozier hurt his ankle. I jumped up and down when he scored the last touchdown, and I bawled when the 2-point conversion pass bounced off of his shoulder pad.
Good memories. Thanks,
@CrabHusker.
