It may have started as a part-time job, but broadcasting high school sports helped Jim Teckenbrock have a big-time impact on the Fox Valley.
Many of us were saddened to learn the WSPY 107.1-FM Sports Director had died on Wednesday, June 25, of pneumonia, following recent battles with several health issues.
Teckenbrock, 76, will definitely be missed, leaving a legacy of local sports coverage that’s seldom matched these days.
“I’ve never seen anybody more dedicated than him or who cares more about Fox Valley sports,” retired Plano athletic director Jim Schmidt said.
I couldn’t agree more.
Sharing space in a press box or at a game’s press table many times over the past 25 years helped me get to know “Teck,” as he’s known by so many of us. They included his final three broadcasts the second week of June, covering the Oswego girls softball team’s run to a state championship in Peoria.
“He always said he’s got the best job in the world doing the games on radio, which was good since he also had a face for radio,” Schmidt added with a chuckle.
Teckenbrock’s focus may have been the three communities – Sandwich, Plano and Yorkville – represented by three of the station’s call letters, but his reach extended well beyond their Route 34 corridor to include Oswego, Aurora, the Tri-Cities and surrounding small communities that comprise the bulk of the Little Ten Conference.
When Schmidt expanded the field of his school’s Plano Christmas Classic boys basketball tournament from 16 teams to 24 teams in 2012, I dubbed Teckenbrock an “ironman.”
He traditionally broadcasts every game in the tourney that involves a team from his station’s coverage area. That year, he did 32 games in five days and kept it up until a few years later, when the field was pared back to 16, which still makes for a busy week.
“He looked at me that year and said, ‘Jim, what are we doing?’” Schmidt said. “But you know what, I believe he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
The Classic has long been looked after by Schmidt, Teckenbrock and local businessman Greg Gould, who oversees the Reapers’ website, stats and many other tasks.
“Greg and Teck always would work hand in hand,” said Schmidt, who made sure the broadcaster was taken care of with plenty of hot tea, honey, lemon juice or whatever his vocal chords needed. “That tournament will never be the same.”
A 1966 Plano High School grad who served in the Navy, graduated from Waubonsee Community College and Northern Illinois University and coached at Waubonsee, Teckenbrock got a taste of broadcasting initially working with Aurora legend Neal Ormond briefly in the 1980s.
Teckenbrock was always active in his community and worked for the Sandwich Chamber of Commerce and directed the Sandwich Economic Development Corporation.
He went from part-time at WSPY in 1996 to full-time four years later.
“(His passing) is terrible news,” Yorkville Athletic Director Luke Engelhardt said. “The legacy he leaves is impressive.”
Engelhardt, a Yorkville High School alum, played basketball for the Foxes and was a sophomore on the 2002 team that reached the supersectional at NIU. Teck would bring up details of that or other games, years later.
“You always wanted to be in the game he was covering,” Engelhardt said. “He could remember an awful lot. And it wasn’t just with me, he could do that with hundreds of other people, he was so invested..
“Two years ago when our girls softball team went to state and had a 13-inning semifinal game in that hot weather, rallying from two runs down in the 13th to win I remember looking over at him and seeing tears in his eyes he was so happy to see them win,” he said.
Engelhardt said Yorkville High School even has a sign in a section of the football press box that says “Teck’s Box” placed there by his predecessor.
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“I haven’t touched it,” Engelhardt said. “He will always have a spot there.”
Brad Kunz, current Minooka assistant football coach who led Plano for six seasons, said “it felt important” when Teckenbrock was on the call for his team’s games.
“He had one of those voices, it was a radio voice,” Kunz said. “He really fit the mold. But the biggest thing for me was how deep he’d dive into the stories behind the athletes, getting to know their backstories.
“That and just his knowledge of the community,” he said. “I’d bounce ideas off him. I felt like he had the pulse of the community.”
Visitation for Teckebrock will be Sunday, June 29, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, 2465 W. Sandwich Road, Sandwich. It will continue from 10 to 11 a.m. Monday, June 30, at the church, followed by the funeral.