Sports announcer Steve McClure with dire health news: ‘Lived my life’
6 min readSteve McClure graduated from Southport Superior School (Indianapolis) in 1963 without the need of a clue. No fault of Southport. That variation of Steve McClure just was not ready for the world at Ball Point out that awaited him.
“I had no thought how to be a school scholar,” McClure said.
He lasted a 12 months. Then another semester. McClure’s father instructed him he was not heading to spend one more dime of higher education if he did not improve his grades. As a substitute, a loved ones good friend drove McClure downtown to the Air Drive recruiting workplace. “It’s what I wanted,” McClure explained.
4 several years in the Air Drive improved McClure. He re-enrolled at Ball Point out immediately after his tour and zoomed by way of university, “making ‘A’s’ instead of ‘D’s.’” McClure, 77, earned his degree from Ball State in 1971 in radio and television. He was off and managing in a occupation that spanned 51 years in many roles of sports media and communications.
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McClure in no way definitely stopped working. But he also by no means appeared to be shifting so quickly that he stopped experiencing his do the job, regardless of whether it was masking golfing and tennis for the Center Grove Sporting activities Network, the neighborhood community in Greenwood, Indiana, as he has the earlier 5 a long time, or performing as a spotter at Indianapolis Colts video games for 36 decades, or performing as a general public deal with announcer at Franklin School for the earlier 16 several years.
“I feel it’s primarily that I have a passion for what I do,” McClure reported. “If you really do not have enthusiasm for what you do, why are you associated in it? I by no means considered halting. Why would I? I have experienced people request, ‘Steve, when are you likely to give up some of the matters you do?’ I’d say, ‘Why, are you jealous?’”
McClure provides that previous concern with a chortle. He pauses briefly and ahead of pondering the future line. The street ahead for him is bleak. But he would instead emphasis on a thing else fully.
“If you took a piece of paper and listed 1 by means of 100 of all the issues I’m thankful for, there wouldn’t be enough figures,” McClure stated. “I try to really encourage other people to live in that spirit. I’m a male of God and I’ve felt his presence throughout this entire ordeal. I’m resolved in my beliefs so I’m comfy with those thoughts. That’s the way I want to be remembered: I lived my everyday living.”
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McClure observed his health care provider three weeks ago Friday. The suffering in his decreased stomach had develop into unbearable. He had been treated periodically for irritable bowel syndrome for the past 5 a long time and considered that was once again causing the distress.
Following a CAT scan and a lot more exams, a biopsy of his liver found a malignant tumor that experienced spread to his colon. Medical professionals laid out the alternatives for McClure and his spouse, Sylvia.
“It was not a tough decision for us,” McClure mentioned. “Since it is an intense style of most cancers, the prognosis is not very good. I could not dwell the style of lifetime I’m used to dwelling if I’d long gone by means of with chemotherapy.”
McClure does not know how very long he has remaining. Time is valuable. Steve and Sylvia, who have been married 34 years, welcomed their daughter, Jenni, and granddaughter, Erin, to their property this week when they visited from Florida.
The information was, admittedly, “jolting.” McClure experienced been nutritious his complete everyday living. “It’s like a heavyweight boxer knocks you down,” he reported.
But he did not continue to be down extensive. Kevin Conrad, who has labored with McClure the past five yrs with the Heart Grove Sporting activities Community, compiled a touching video clip tribute from coaches, athletes and other individuals in McClure’s existence.
“What I like about Steve is he has a way of entering a press box and masking a video game that was refreshing,” Conrad reported. “It was hardly ever like, ‘Ugh, we’re executing a further video game.’ He experienced a large smile and a hearty handshake. He was constantly an eternal optimist. You understood you have been likely to have a great time broadcasting a activity with Steve.”
At golfing events, McClure would usually go out on the course to job interview and enjoy the golfers while Conrad labored in the clubhouse. But with a great deal of downtime for the duration of those extended occasions, Conrad arrived to know McClure as a friend.
“He definitely relished in masking these young ones who might not get the headlines in sports activities like basketball or soccer,” Conrad claimed. “He had a way with those people kids to get them to smile. He’s a skilled, but you could inform he also really relished what he was accomplishing.”
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McClure appears much more like Sparky Anderson than Tommy Lasorda. But Dodger blue runs through his veins. He has attended the Los Angeles Dodgers’ fantasy camp 17 times, together with very last spring in Vero Seashore, Florida, the team’s spring coaching dwelling.
“I was a damn very good player in Tiny League,” McClure mentioned.
He performed with the Indiana Central Small League software. When McClure was 12, Indiana native and then-Brooklyn Dodger Carl Erskine played the nationwide anthem on his harmonica at his Small League All-Star game. McClure was already a Dodger supporter, but that sealed the offer.
“I hated the Yankees,” he said. “I could not stand them and the Dodgers could not defeat them right until they at last did in 1955. The Dodgers have been my crew at any time because.”
McClure fulfilled Erskine at a evening meal at the Indianapolis Zoo in 1994 when his wife, Sylvia, a longtime trainer, was currently being honored. Erskine was the showcased speaker. Sylvia confident her husband to converse to Erskine, who questioned for his small business card. 3 days afterwards, a manila envelope arrived with registration for the Dodgers fantasy camp.
“I couldn’t fill it out fast enough,” he claimed. “That was quite a thrill for me. We gained the championship that 12 months. I’ve absent to 16 much more camps and never gained yet again. But I’ve met guys from all in excess of the globe who have become some of my ideal good friends.”
Numerous of them have reached out to McClure considering the fact that locating out about his dire health circumstance. McClure tends to make good friends quickly. He made them at his to start with position at WRCR radio station in Rushville, Indiana, in which he was the information and sports director and referred to as perform-by-participate in for Rushville and Jap Hancock basketball and football game titles. He then moved on to New Port Richey, Florida, to get the job done at an all-information, all-sports activities radio station from 1973-78 and then transitioned into a profession in sporting activities information at Youngstown State, Cincinnati and Barry College (Fla).
“Good detail I was solitary,” he stated. “Because I was functioning all the time.”
He moved back residence to Indianapolis in 1985 and observed a job at Sharp Ford as a result of a longtime buddy, but on the affliction that he could go on to pursue his enthusiasm in sporting activities. And he did, working as the community deal with announcer for the College of Indianapolis basketball from 1985 to 2005. McClure also hooked on with the Colts as the interior push box announcer, a posture he held for 18 a long time. After aiding to establish a Spanish radio network for Colts video games for a pair of several years, he labored as the spotter for stadium community handle announcer Mike Jansen for a lot of a long time.
“I like to take on new troubles,” McClure stated.
In recent decades, he has labored for Franklin College as a public tackle announcer and has labored for the Day by day Journal as a correspondent, in addition to his duties with the Center Grove Athletics Community. Sylvia typically joins him.
“He loves daily life,” Conrad mentioned. “He’s that variety of dude. I really do not believe it at any time turned regimen for him.”
Past Friday, Steve and Sylvia went to see the band The united states at the Brown County Tunes Middle in Nashville. What is the stage of residing lifetime if you are not out there living it?
“I try to remain my youthful self,” McClure reported. “That’s what I’ve carried out my whole existence and I’ve beloved what I do. I have a whole lot of matters to be thankful for.”
