Halbleib getting the call to the IBCA Hall

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Greg Halbleib started broadcasting basketball games on the air for WZOE radio in December of 1979. But he started “calling” games sitting on the bench as a freshman basketball player at Putnam County High School in 1975.

“I was the 15th guy on the freshmen basketball team. I started doing play by play and the 14th guy was the color guy. The 13th guy couldn’t tell us to shut up enough,” he said. “We weren’t getting into the game at the end of the bench, so we had to do something.”

Twenty-nine years later, after calling roughly 1,500 basketball games on the air, Halbleib will receive the ultimate honor for Illinois basketball broadcasters when he will be inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Associa-tion’s Hall of Fame on April 25 in Bloomington. Also to be honored that evening is the late Mineral High School basketball coach, Oliver Jochums.

“I’m really tickled. It’s more along the lines it means you have been around a long time,” Halbleib said. “Hope-fully, it doesn’t mean you’re at the end of your career. I’ve been around 29 years. I figure I got that many more in me, hopefully.”

Halbleib, sports director for WJBC Radio in Bloomington since May 2002, called Princeton Tiger basketball and football games from 1979 to 2002, as well as the Indian Valley Conference basketball tournaments.

He got his start calling the old Manlius Holiday Tourna-ment at Bollman Fieldhouse in New Bedford alongside his old partner, Dave VanDrew. It was VanDrew who lit the fire on Halbleib’s long career.

“He told me one night, ‘all right, you’re doing the third quarter,’ and he gave me the headset. I’m sure it was awful, but it was fun,” said Halbleib, who has won seven Silver Dome awards from the Illinois Broadcasters Association.

Halbleib still calls high school games, along with Illinois State University volleyball, Bloomington Extreme indoor football and Bloomington Prairie-Thunder hockey. He said his job never gets old.

“I still love going to the arena each night. It’s still a passion,” he said. “God has really blessed me in letting me use my gift in this way to stay connected with sports, which I think is so important to any community. If your school  has a team, that’s your face. It’s a fun way to stay involved in the community. It’s a real bonding.”

Guessing to have averaged 50 basketball games a year for 30 years, Halbleib said he’s being completely honest when he says he’s enjoyed every one.

Of all the places he’s worked from, Halbleib said he still hasn’t found a venue like Bollman Fieldhouse in New Bedford. He started his career there and was fortunate to call the last game there in February 1998 during Bureau Valley’s final game there before moving into the new school.

“It was in the middle of nowhere and had some great games,” he said.

He said he almost wanted to get stuck in the mud where so many people had been over the years there leaving games, just so he never had to leave.

• Jochums, who won six district championships while compiling a 212-106 record from 1940-42 and 1946-55 at Mineral, is one of 16 honorees inducted as a “Friend of basketball.” He was inducted into the Bureau County Sports Hall of Fame along with his Leopards basketball teams in 2004.

The Hall of Class of 2009 includes six teams, 15 coaches, 10 members of the media, 12 officials, including Tom Starr of Rock Falls, 19 male players, including Sergio Mc-Clain of Peoria Manual, and nine girls, including Tami Turner of Dixon.

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