It’s our time to tell Charlie Ellerbrock’s story, he told yours so well

For many years, he told your stories.

From the shores of Lake DePue to the ball fields of Spring Valley and gyms of Ottawa and many towns and schools all around, Charlie Ellerbrock wrote your stories that have stood the test of time in grandma’s scrapbooks and hanging on refrigerators.

No one told stories like Charlie and how he poured his heart and soul in to each and every one.

Now it’s our turn to tell Charlie’s story.

Sadly, Charlie passed away unexpectedly last week at the age of 67. It was a jolt felt all around the Illinois Valley of the loss of a much beloved journalist and friend.

Here’s just a sample of social media tributes to Charlie:

“Charlie was awesome.”

“Tremendous human being.”

“He treated me so well in high school. Wrote great articles and truly cared about kids.”

“He was the very best.”

“A true professional and a truly nice guy.”

“He was always kind and genuinely happy for your successes.”

“Charlie cared about players, coaches and his craft. He was also a great colleague and so kind and fun to be around.”

“One of the most gentle and kind-hearted journalists I’ve ever known.”

“Great guy, great sports writer and great human being.”

“His passion for his job and love for everyone will never be forgotten. Truly a kind soul.”

Charlie was my old partner in crime at the BCR. We met my first year at the BCR in the winter of the 1986-87. I believe it was at the Chicago Bears basketball game fundraiser at LaMoille High School. He was writing sports for the NewsTribune and I was the new kid in town.

Always quick with wit, we were talking about how many overtime games Princeton had played recently. He joked that Tiger coach Tony Lavorato had seen so many overtimes he was going to take the letters “O-T” out of his last name.

That was such a classic line that I used it as my lead in the Tigers’ next overtime game and it remains today as perhaps my favorite lead.

When Charlie left the NewsTribune, I scooped him up as a sports stringer for the BCR. We eventually convinced our editor to bring him on full-time as a half sports/half news guy. It wasn’t too long that we talked him into becoming full-time on sports, where Charlie thrived.

We made a great team for about 14-15 years before he left to join the Ottawa Times. We had Bureau County covered like a blanket, you could say, with him following the Hall and St. Bede sports teams and me on the Princeton beat and small surrounding schools before the Bureau Valley consolidation.

Because I was his supervisor as sports editor, someone has told me that Charlie was the Robin to my Batman. He was much more than that. He was Superman when it came to his sports coverage.

He didn’t just write about his teams. He became part of the team, passionately devoted to each and every team and athlete that he covered. He didn’t care about the old protocol of “no cheering from the press box.” He cheered for his teams and lived and died with them.

On many occasions after a heart-breaking loss, I’d see Charlie give an emotional athlete a heart-warming hug as they sobbed on his shoulders.

One of his many talents was shooting sports photos. He was so skilled to capture that perfect moment, his trademark photo capturing the thrill of victory and agony of defeat in the same shot.

When you spend a lot of late nights together at the office, especially on Friday nights during the football season, you get to know one another a lot. Sometimes maybe a little too much. We may not have seen eye to eye at times, but we always had a mutual respect for one another.

And we had some fun times together. One late Friday night about 15 minutes after Charlie left the office, a report came over the scanner of a car hitting a horse on the Route 6 curve east of town. I told night editor, Lyle Ganther, “I bet that was Charlie,” and sure enough his driver’s license was read over the scanner.

So when Charlie walked in to the office the next Monday morning, I simply said, “Willllllllbur,” in reference to the old TV show, “Mr. Ed,” the horse. Charlie said, “How did you know about that?”

Another moment of laughs and a little fright was when I was behind the wheel driving home from Champaign after Hall’s state championship football victory in 2001. Suddenly a raccoon ran across the road and I took it out with a large thump. Charlie was startled and said, “what the heck was that?,” and just went back to work on his story so we could hit our deadlines when we got home.

Again, he was a pro’s pro, always putting out that perfect story.

We have talked over the years, more so when we became partners again when Shaw Media Local brought the Ottawa Times into the fold. I looked back at our last text exchange from last May when I congratulated him being inducted into the IBCA Hall of Fame, which was so deserved. We told each other how much we appreciated one another and enjoyed our time together.

I’m so glad we had that exchange. I’ve been writing too many tributes in the past few months with the loss of Geno Storm, Dave Camp and John Smith. It’s a reminder that we should all reach out to our friends and tell them how much they mean to you while you still have them.

This -30- is for you, Chas.

Kevin Hieronymus has been the BCR Sports Editor since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com