Jack of all trades: Ehresman covered everything from Fighting Irish to fishing shows
Jack Ehresman was outside when he covered his first event for the Journal Star in 1953.
That's fitting, since outside is where Ehresman, 74, spent so much of his 45-year newspaper career. But that first event wasn't a fishing tournament or duck hunt, as you might guess.
Long before Ehresman became one of Illinois' best-known outdoor columnists, he was a sportswriter who covered everything from football to baseball to basketball to horseshoe pitching.
He captured the action in 1960 when Bradley beat Oscar Robertson and Cincinnati, 91-90, in one of BU's most memorable Peoria games.
He was on the beat for five seasons of The Era of Ara, when coach Ara Parshegian's Notre Dame Fighting Irish dominated college football.
He wrote about the St. Louis Cardinals and still chuckles about an interview with Harry Caray, after which he wound up with Stan Musial's credit card. "Harry gave it to me and told me I could use it, but I didn't charge anything," Ehresman said.
And he was there when Truman Standard of Canton won the 1953 state horseshoe pitching championship at Bradley Park. "If I remember correctly, he damn near threw 50 ringers in a row," said Ehresman, who was a Bradley student covering his first sporting event.
In recognition of that wide-ranging career, Ehresman will be honored at noon today in the Peoria Civic Center when the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame inducts its 27th class. A Peoria native, Ehresman was an inaugural member of the Illinois Outdoor Hall of Fame in 2002.
And though he enjoyed sportswriting, Ehresman hit his stride when he took over the outdoors beat from Howard Kenny in 1967. For the next 30 years Ehresman wrote as many as five columns per week.
"I loved it," he said. "Before me they had outdoors columns now and then. But I started the outdoor page, and it went over really well."
Ehresman's timing also was good. He started outdoor writing at a time when hunting and fishing were becoming more than just backwoods pursuits.
The first outdoor event he covered was the American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers show in 1967 at the old Sherman House hotel in Chicago. Three things from that show stand out in his mind.
One was a Texan named Nick Creme who was trying to sell rubber worms as fishing lures. "People were actually laughing at him," Ehresman said.
"The second thing was that Plano was introducing plastic in tackle boxes," Ehresman said. "The third thing was everybody was excited that the salmon stocked in Lake Michigan had survived."
Needless to say, rubber worms, plastic tackle boxes and Lake Michigan salmon fishing have stood the test of time. So has Ehresman.
After living in Hanna City for years, Ehresman and wife Ann have moved to Germantown Hills. There they keep busy with six grandchildren.
"All my grandkids love to fish, and I really get a kick out of it," Ehresman said.
His hunting has slowed, though, since Ehresman spends most of the fall and winter in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.
Even so, while in Florida, Ehresman spends part of every day walking along the beach to a nearby fishing pier. He's still outside after all these years.
Jeff Lampe is an outdoors columnist for the Peoria Journal Star. Write to him at 1 News Plaza, Peoria, IL 61643, call (309) 686-3212 or e-mail jlampe@pjstar.com.