Page 7 - Sanger Herald 1-18-18 E-edition

By Daniel Gligich
Sanger Herald correspondent
Paul Loeffler, who does play by play for Fresno State football, basketball and baseball teams has recently maybe become better known in Sanger for his radio pro- gram "Hometown Heroes."
The program features interviews with veterans, pri- marily from the World War II generation and presents history through the perspec- tives of those who lived it.
Sanger veterans Dean Nicholson and Dan Cano have been featured on Loef- fler's program.
It was primarily because of the interview with Nichol- son that Loeffler was asked to be master of ceremonies at the Coach Dean Nicholson Gym dedication in October 2017. Nicholson told Loeffler on the radio program about his World War II experiences in 1944 and 1945.
Loeffler encouraged those in the audience at the gym dedication ceremony to talk about Nicholson so he’s more than just a name in 50 years on a high school gym.
“Tell those stories,” Loef- fler said. “Keep that legacy alive. Let them know (who he was). Enjoy the Dean Nichol- son Gymnasium.
Loeffler, nowthemelodi- ous voice of the Bulldogs, remembers a time when his voice was not so smooth. In fact, it may have been a little high pitched when he was
a young rookie announcing youth football. “The story I always tell is I'm 12 years old, I'm announcing a game, and in between somebody walks up to this press box, opens the door,” Loeffler said. “He looks inside. He looks all the way around
at five, six people in there. He looks all confused, and he says, 'Well I don't know where she went, but when that girl comes back, tell her she's doing a great job an- nouncing the game.’”
Loeffler got his start in announcing when he was watching a 49ers game with his father at their home in Los Banos and could not keep quiet. The announcer said something that Loeffler knew was wrong. Loeffler told his father, “That guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” His father laughed at him, and responded, “Well, if you think you can do better, maybe you should be a sports announcer.”His father told him to get on his bike, and they rode a few blocks to the home of a man who did all
of the sports announcing in Los Banos. Loeffler’s father asked if Paul could follow him around and help out.
Loeffler started by acting as a spotter, looking through binoculars to see which play-
ers were involved in a play. Within a few weeks Loeffler was already announcing Pop Warner Football games.
With Hisannouncingca- reer already off and running, Loeffler applied to only one college - Syracuse - because he heard it was the best school for broadcast journal- ism. He graduated in 1998 with a dual major in broad- cast journalism and policy studies. After he graduated, heappliedforajobataTV station in Syracuse, but did not get it.
“I was kind of bummed,” Loeffler said. “I graduated, don't have a job, coming back here, but I tell everybody that God's plans are always better than mine, and I see that reflected in a lot of things that have happened in my life.”
Not getting the job was a blessing in disguise. Loef- fler returned to Los Banos, and his father passed away three months later. If he had stayed in Syracuse, he would not have had those last three months with his father.
After returning home, Loeffler was hired in Fresno at CBS 47, where he stayed for 10 years. On the side he hosted a cable show called the Bulldog Wire. Fresno State students in the Mass Communications and Jour- nalism department worked on the show’s production, which is how Loeffler met his wife, Tonia, who was a Fresno State student at the time.
While at channel 47, Loef- fler started to air segments telling veterans’ stories. His interest in veterans comes from his grandfather, a World War II veteran. His grandfather never told his story before, which got Loeffler thinking about all the other veterans who had never told their stories.
Loeffler started broadcast- ing Fresno State baseball games in 2001 in addition to his television job. In 2008, Loeffler wanted to quit his job at CBS and turn what he started to do with veterans on TV into a syndicated TV show, but he had to finish
the baseball season on radio first. It turned out to be a very special season.
“That’s when they won the College World Series, which they had no business doing,” Loeffler said.
Unbeknownst to Loeffler, Fresno State was search-
ing for the next football and basketball voice to take over for longtime broadcaster Bill Woodward who was retiring.
When the Bulldogs won the College World Series, everything changed. Fresno State offered Loeffler the position of voice of the Bull- dogs after hearing his call of
SANGER HERALD 7A THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018
Voice of the Bulldogs helps Sanger
WWII veterans tell their stories
REEDLEY COLLEGE:
Continued from page 6A
ships during the 1989 and 1990 seasons. He graduated from Fresno State with a bachelors and masters de- gree in physical education.
Santesteban moved to
the "Land of Enchantment," where at the University of New Mexico, he obtained his PhD in sport administration, and was also an assistant coach for the men’s soc-
cer team. From 2000-2003, Santesteban was the head coach and physical education instructor at Southwestern Oregon Community College. The Lakers made the North- west Athletic Association of Community College playoffs in each of his three seasons.
Santesteban was named athletic director and head men’s soccer coach at San Jacinto College in Houston in 2004. In his eight years there as head coach, the Coyotes achieved numerous No. 1 na- tional rankings, one National Junior College Athletic As- sociation (NJCAA) runner-up finish, and three final four appearances. SJC won five region 14 championships
and four Mid-South District titles. Santesteban won four NJCAA district coach of the year awards and coached two NJCAA players of the year, while also seeing many of his players transfer to NCAA and NAIA schools, then play at the professional level, including Major League Soc- cer.
Santesteban left San Jacinto in 2012 to become
a technical advisor for the United States Soccer Federa- tion, which included a stint as an assistant coach for the boys’ U14 and U15 national teams.
From there, he went to the University of the Virgin Islands and led the men’s soccer team to an appear- ance in the final four. As interim athletic director, he guided the department into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
Santesteban returned to the Central Valley in 2016, and served as the technical director of the California Odyssey Soccer Club, the most successful youth soccer club in the Fresno area. He additionally spearheaded the clubs’ return to the United States Soccer Development Academy, the highest level of youth soccer in the country.
Paul Loeffler was master of ceremonies at the October 2017 Coach Dean Nicholson Gym dedication.
the championship baseball season.
“To me, that was God's plan being better than mine, where I got to do all three sports, keep interviewing veterans - just do it on the radio - and have a lot more time with my family than I had when I was in TV,” Loef- fler said.
He took over Fresno State basketball in 2008
and started calling football for the 2009 season. Along with his Hometown Heroes radio show, Loeffler helped start the Central Valley Honor Flight, which sent its first group of veterans to Washington in 2013. Several Sanger veterans have been on those flights and Joseph Matsuo will be going on the next one.
Loeffler has worked with many color analysts for foot- ball, basketball and baseball. Some of them were former coaches, some of them play- ers and some of them long- time broadcasters. Loeffler said he has learned a lot from all of them.
Marc Q. Jones, commonly known as Coach Q, joined Loeffler as the color analyst for the 2016-17 basketball season.
Jones considers Loeffler a “bona fide genius,” and said this is the most fun he has had in his over 20 years of being around organized basketball.
“And Paul really helped settle me down and say, ‘Hey man, I’m going to work with you. Don't worry about anything. We're going to make it.’ He just reassured me,” Jones said. “When he figured out how to help me, he stepped in and did that."
Jones said that Loeffler
is now a close friend and praised his very strong moral compass. During broadcasts, he sometimes wonders how Loeffler thought of the words to describe what they just saw, which shows how tal- ented Loeffler is.
“He always says ‘God’s plans are better than ours,’” Jones said. “That’s his thing. God’s plans are better than ours. And that story on how he ended up becoming the voice of Fresno State, I think he had no idea that was com- ing his way. Even if you don’t believe in God, you’ve got to
admire someone who walks the walk that he talks.” Before working with
Jones, Loeffler worked bas- ketball with longtime broad- caster Randy Rosenbloom.
“He’s a consummate professional,” Rosenbloom said. “He’s very solid. He’s unbelievably well prepared. He’s as smart as anyone I’ve ever worked with. I’ve been in the business a lot of years, and I’ve worked with the best in the business. He’s as good an interviewer as I’ve ever been around.”
Rosenbloom said that Loef- fler was a model of consis- tency, was prepared for the job from day one and never had a weakness or a hole in his broadcasting.
“It’s not all about just call- ing the games on the air,” Rosenbloom said. “You want the right image, and Paul gives you a great image. He’s the perfect image for any university.”
It is not uncommon for for- mer athletes to move into the broadcast booth. However, Loeffler competed in the na- tional spelling bee as a child, and may be the only former competitor who is broadcast- ing the event for ESPN. His mom encouraged him and his sister to compete, and in 1990 he tied for 13th place in the nation.
In 2006 Loeffler received a call from a producer from ABC Sports asking if he would be interested in join- ing the broadcast team for the spelling bee.
“I don’t know how long I was silent, but I’m thinking, ‘OK. Which one of my college roommates is this trying to prank me?’” Loeffler said.
It was a legitimate call, and Loeffler thinks he must have been chosen because of his combination spelling bee/ broadcasting experience.
Along with the College World Series, Loeffler has had many great moments
as the voice of the Bulldogs. One of his favorite moments was during the 2009 football season when Fresno State played at Illinois.
The Bulldogs were at- tempting a 2-point conver- sion at the end to win a back and forth game. Loeffler was in the middle of basketball season, and he had a cold, so his voice was getting hoarse.
The play broke down and went horribly wrong, but an offensive lineman caught
a tipped pass to score the game winning two points, which made Loeffler very excited. His excitement led to his voice cracking during the call.
“It was so awesome the way they won the game,” Loeffler said. “So then Sports Center takes my call of that touchdown and blasts it
all over the place, so all of my old college buddies are texting me and calling me and making fun of me for my voice cracking all over the place.”
Although his job requires much traveling, he has built up many frequent flier miles and is sometimes able to take his family, or just one of his daughters, on trips.
“Obviously being away from your family is the downside of the job,” Loef- fler said. “In the summer I'm not away at all. They're off from school, and I'm home, and I don't have any games. But if I can turn a weekend where I'm supposed to be away from the family into taking them or one of them with me, then to me that's like a win-win.”
Loeffler said that if his priorities are not in the
order of God, wife, kids and then job, something is out
of order. The travel can be
a burden on Tonia, and he wishes people knew the great job she does with keeping the family stable when he’s on the road. “A lot of times people will come up and say nice things to me and compli- ment my work or something like that,” Loeffler said. “And if I could, I would pass all those off to her.”
Loeffler is very happy with where he is now, and said he does not think there is a better job for him in the country. “I believe that God has a plan, and his plan's bet- ter than mine, that his timing is perfect,” Loeffler said. “So if things stay the way they are right now, I'm perfectly content to stay here and do this as long as they trust
me to do this. It's a great privilege to be trusted by the school, by the fans, by the radio station to do that job. I don't take that responsibility lightly.”
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