By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN
Special to the Hays Post
Rod Fairbank admits he is an emotional guy. So he isn’t even going to pretend that Friday’s games between Thomas More Prep-Marian and Norton will be an easy call.
After 30 years of announcing Monarch basketball games above the court in Al Billinger Fieldhouse in Hays, Fairbank has decided to hand the microphone to someone else.
Friday’s games will be his last stint as public address announcer for a girls’ and boys’ doubleheader at TMP-Marian.
“It could be a hard one,” he admitted Monday night after the Monarchs’ games with Oakley.
Fairbanks had been tossing around the idea for the past few years, thinking about when might be a good time to step aside.
Then when football season would roll around in the fall, he’d get the fever again, and off to Lewis Field he would go for every Friday home game. It’s something that comes a way of life after 25 to 30 years, he said.
How this all began
Fairbank’s wife, Michelle, was working at TMP-Marian in the mid-1990s when longtime announcer Father Earl Befort told Athletic Director Gene Flax at the end of the 1994-95 basketball season that would be his last year calling Monarch basketball.
So Flax immediately contacted Fairbank, and he thought maybe his wife had volunteered him for the job. But Flax had already thought of who his next PA guy could be.
Flax and Fairbank had played high school sports together at Ransom in the early to mid-1970s. And Flax remembered that Rod’s dad, Elmer Fairbank, was the longtime clock operator for football and basketball games.
“I thought I’d give it a try and help them out for a season,” Fairbank said when Flax asked him to announce.
“That was 30 years ago,” he said, his eyes sparkling.
Five years later, Father Earl announced he would be walking away from football announcing as well. Flax knew immediately who he would ask to be Father Earl’s replacement.
Fairbank had decided to give up refereeing high school football about that time because his oldest child was just entering high school at TMP-Marian. So the timing was perfect to pick up the football announcing, too.
TMP supporter through and through
It’s easy to see – and hear – that Fairbank enjoys this gig. He shows up at least an hour before games, goes over names and numbers and researches pronunciations of players’ names. After all, not all names are like “Fairbank” and are pronounced like they are spelled.
“I really enjoy the people at the scorer’s table, too, visiting about the games,” he said. “Some coaches, you almost knew what play they were going to draw up in a timeout after watching them for that many years.”
This year weighed heavy on Fairbank as he began the basketball season. Longtime clock operator Greg Schmidt, a good friend of Fairbank’s, was losing his nine-year battle with brain cancer and died on Jan. 31. The night of Schmidt’s vigil service happened to be a scheduled Monarch game.
It was one of the few games Fairbank had missed since the turn of the millennium.
It made him realize it was the right time to step away. He has grandchildren who are reaching the age of participating in activities — the oldest two are 10-year-olds, one in Hays and the other in Valley Center — and he wants to concentrate on family time.
“With Greg’s passing, I thought it’s time to let someone younger step in,” Fairbank said. “It’s been 30 years. That’s a good number to go out on.”
Fans will miss him
Joe Koenigsman is a TMP-Marian parent of four daughters who have played basketball for the Monarchs. He began taking his daughters to games from little on and has always enjoyed Fairbank’s announcing.
“He has done such an awesome job all those years,” said Koenigsman, whose name is one that Fairbank had to inquire how to pronounce. “He’s so reliable, and the way he announces the players’ names, it gets them in the spirit. We sure are going to miss him.”
Fairbank said he gained more confidence over the years while developing his own style of announcing.
He developed his own style — period. Fairbank was on a school trip with his wife one year, and they ran across a headband with buffalo horns on it.
What a good way to represent the Monarchs, right? He’s worn the headband to games ever since.
The booming voice that asks, “Monarch fans, are you ready?” before announcing the starters at every game will be hard to match.
He has become a master at drawing out names.
It will be hard to replace the bearded guy wearing a headband with horns, who can make even the shortest of names ring out: “For the Monarchs, wearing number 3, a 5-10 junior is Will-ll-ll-ll Ehhhhhck!”
Fairbank laughs while remembering the first time he saw Eck’s name on the Monarch roster. That was one name he didn’t have to ask how to pronounce.
He will miss announcing, too
Fairbank knows the first football game next fall will be hard because … well, he loves announcing, and he loves the Monarchs.
But for now, he is enjoying reminiscing.
He talked about the Monarchs’ three state championship basketball teams he got to announce at home games and follow all the way to state, about the standout football players who have played for the Monarchs, such as TJ Gottschalk, who went on to play NCAA Division I ball at Wyoming.
“Now, TJ has daughters playing basketball here,” Fairbank said. “Seeing that is pretty cool.”
Fairbank enjoyed getting the crowd excited when a player made a 3-point basket. He particularly liked announcing players who had reached the 1,000-point milestone in basketball. He sometimes even gave a player a moniker, such as “Downtown Tom Diehl,” a prolific 3-point shooter for the Monarch basketball team in the late 1990s.
He often added adjectives to describe plays or to enhance a call, such as “picking the pig” for an interception or “a whole congregation of Monarchs” for a group tackle.
Most of all, he thought it was important to recognize as many players as possible so their families could hear their names.
There is still a possibility for this year’s boys’ and girls’ teams to host a first-round game of sub-state next week, but they will be on different nights. And it’s not quite the same as calling a doubleheader.
“I’ll definitely miss all this, but they’re not going to get rid of me that easily,” he said. “I’ll still come to games and watch as a fan.”
But will you miss calling the games?
“Oh, yes! It will be hard sitting in the stands,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll have to sit somewhere besides behind the scorer’s table.”