Each year the IBCA Board of Directors selects individuals from each of the three IBCA Districts to receive the Virgil Sweet Distinguished Service Award. The award, named in honor of the longtime former Executive Director of the IBCA, is given to individuals who have provided meritorious service in the promotion of basketball in the state of Indiana.
Chuck Freeby
District 1
WHME sports director Chuck Freeby knows the complete Michiana sports scene as well as anyone, mainly because he has been a part of it all his life. Born in South Bend, he is a 1982 graduate of Elkhart Central High School. In 1986, he received a B.A. in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame.
These days, he is well known for his love of area high school sports. That passion showed for 17 years at WNDU-TV, where Freeby pioneered “Friday Night Flights” during football season and “Roundball Roundup” for basketball. Now Freeby is at WHME-TV 46, where he calls play-by-play on the high school football and basketball “Game of the Week,” various college sports events, including Notre Dame baseball, and provides morning sports reports on Pulse FM.
Freeby is also a co-host of LeSea’s “Harvest” show, reporting international news every weekday.
An award-winning journalist, Freeby has received honors for his reporting of a variety of sports events, including his radio play-by-play calls of Notre Dame hockey. He also has done play-by-play and color commentary for SportsChannel Chicago.
For the last few years, Freeby has been doing double-duty, working his full-time job at LeSea and filling in part-time at WNDU.
Freeby also takes on the challenge of giving back to the community in the form of public service. He is a frequent guest speaker and auctioneer around town for a variety of charities. He served for many years as a board member for the Women's Care Center and co-chair of the annual House Raffle, which benefits both Women’s Care Center and the Healthy Family Center of Mishawaka. His work over the last 19 years has raised millions of dollars for the Michiana community. He has also served as a coach and umpire at Chet Waggoner Little League and in the Inter-City Catholic League.
Freeby and his wife, Diane, have six children – Peter, Christopher, Mary, Jeanie, Rosie and T.J.
Steve Hanlon
District 1
Steve Hanlon is a 1981 graduate of Crown Point High School and a 1991 graduate of Evangel University in Springfield, Mo.
Hanlon began his professional writing career at The Times of Northwest Indiana in 1991, working there for nine years before moving to The Indianapolis Star in 2000. He worked in Indianapolis for four years before returning to The Times in 2004 because he missed his family and the outstanding pizza.
Hanlon is a Chicago Cubs’ fan, which makes him quite happy on certain days. Same goes for the Chicago Bears. Since Larry Bird retired, his interest in the NBA has dropped. Hanlon loves covering the “black-and-blue” style of the high school game in his corner of the state.
Hanlon and his wife, Karen, have two daughters – Marley and Gracie.
Bob Nagle
District 1
Bob Nagle is in his 38th year of broadcasting in the South Bend area. Bob grew up in Mishawaka and attended Marian High School during some of its greatest years. From 1968 through 1971, Bob Otolski’s football Knights were 34-5-1, including back-to-back undefeated seasons in 1969 and 1970.
That lit a spark in Nagle, who played only one season but stayed on as a team manager, student trainer and team videographer. The technology was new in 1971 and while videoing games, Nagle added commentary to the action. Coach Otolski discovered that when a letter from a recruiter asked him to “send us your announcer”; Coach Otolski passed that to Nagle with the suggestion that he pursue that in the future.
That began the next fall at IU-South Bend. During his team at IUSB, Nagle was taught by veteran broadcaster Roland Kelly, who later served as Nagle’s sports director at WSBT. Nagle’s professional career began at WSBT during the 1977-78 school year with broadcasts of high school football, high school basketball and Notre Dame basketball with Lynn Thornton and Jerry Bleck. Notre Dame won the national championship in football and Irish basketball went to the Final Four in St. Louis – it was quite a start.
During the next 10 years, Nagle covered multiple state championship games, including Plymouth’s 1982 basketball title with Scott Skiles, Penn’s first football title in 1983, a Warsaw basketball crown with Jeff Grose in 1984. During his career, Nagle has been fortunate to cover many local teams at state, including St. Joseph and Penn in 1995 and Jimtown’s four titles and six trips to Indianapolis. Concord, NorthWood and Plymouth have added to the great memories as well as the capable coaches and outstanding players.
Nagle has been a part of broadcast teams at WSBT, WWJY, WNSN, WGTC, WHME, WHPZ, WHPD and has been part of the IHSAA’s statewide network. His coverage of Notre Dame football has included the annual spring game as well as freelance postgame coverage for networks around the country. Nagle currently is sports marketing director at Lesea Broadcasting and WHME TV. He serves as voice of Notre Dame women’s basketball and works with Notre Dame baseball.
Nagle and his wife, Mary Carol, have been married for 33 years and have three children – Bob (30), Joe (28) and Mary Catherine (20).
Danny Danielson
District 2
Danny Danielson is 94 years young and still actively involved in many organizations while following basketball and other sports at all levels.
Vice Chairman of the City Securities Corporation, Indiana’s oldest and largest investment Banking firm, Danielson continues to serve as a Director of the Indiana University Foundation, a Director of Indiana State Chamber of Commerce, a Director of Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, a Director of Wittenbraker YMCA of New Castle and a Director of Americana Bancorp. He also is a member of the Board of Governors for the Riley Children’s Foundation, on the Board of Advisors for Indiana University-East and Chairman of Walther Cancer Foundation.
Danielson is a 1937 graduate of Pierre High School in Pierre, S.D. He also graduated from Indiana University in 1942, where he was a three-year letterman in baseball, with a bachelor’s in education. He then served in the U.S. Navy for four years, earning the rank of Lieutenant Senior Grade. Danielson worked two years at IU as a physical education instructor, in the alumni office and as IU’s interim baseball coach for the 1948 season.
Danielson began his business career in 1948 with ModernFold, a starting as a salesman for the New Castle-based firm and working his way up to company president in 1969. He left ModernFold in 1976 to join City Securities Corporation in 1976 as a senior vice president and was promoted to vice chairman in 1981.
Over the years Danielson has received numerous accolades, including the Chamber of Commerce “Citizen of the Year” in 1972 and 1983, the IU Distinguished Alumni Service Award, the Zora G. Clevenger Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to IU Athletics, the IU President’s Medal of Excellence, an Indiana Jefferson Award for distinguished public service, the Thomas Hart Benton Medallion from Indiana University and the naming of IU-East’s Henry County facility in his honor.
Danielson is a member of The Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, has been named a Sagamore of the Wabash three times, was the Rotarian of the Year in 2007 and received the Governor’s Sachem Award in 2009. He is a member of the Pierre High School Athletic Hall of Fame and received an honorary law degree from IU in 1994.
Danielson and his wife, Patricia, reside in New Castle and have three adult daughters – Mary, Susan and Amy.
Charlie Hughes
District 2
Charlie Hughes has devoted much of his life as a volunteer organizer of basketball events for the youth of Indiana.
A 1958 graduate of Marion High School, Hughes began coaching men’s basketball teams in Amateur Athletic Union programs in 1961. His team, the Anderson ALACs, won local, state level and Midwest Region events and participated in the National Finals. In 1974, Hughes succeeded Bill Summers as basketball chairman of the Indiana AAU district and now is in his 41st year in that position. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he also served as the Indiana AAU girls’ basketball chairman before the program became so large that a separate girls’ chairman took over and Hughes focused his attention on the booming boys’ program.
Hughes also served as AAU boys’ basketball Midwest chairman from 1975-81.
In addition, Hughes organized the Madison County Sertoma All-Star Basketball game from 1974 through 1994, proceeds benefiting Special Olympics programming. He also coordinated an annual series with an Indiana boys’ squad that faced a Russian Junior team from 1976 through 1981.
More recently, Hughes was instrumental in the founding and operations of an Indiana-based youth sports program called USSFA. This group has served school-aged athletes across Indiana for nearly two decades, organizes the Indy High School Shootout each summer (which has grown into the largest boys’ basketball summer event in Indiana) and has awarded more than $10,000 in college scholarships to its members.
Over the years, Hughes also served Indiana AAU as the state registration chairman, second vice president and first vice president.
Providing his efforts without pay throughout, Hughes has been recognized with numerous awards over the years. Among them are the Joe Boland Award from the Indiana Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association for service to youth in 1989 and again in 1996; the Dr. James Macholtz Award from Indiana Special Olympics in 1987; Special Contribution Award from Indiana AAU in 1983; the Outstanding Volunteer Leadership Award from Indiana AAU in 1990; Vision Award from AAU National boys’ basketball in 1991; and being recognized as Sertoman of the Year from the Anderson Sertoma Club in 1989 and 1990.
Hughes worked for Hoosier Market in Marion and Anderson as a student and for several years following high school. In 1964, he moved to a position with General Motors in Anderson and remained there until retiring in 2006.
Now 74 years young, Hughes and his wife, Catherine, enjoy spending time with their adult children – Debbie, Sherry, Jill, April, Rodney, Greg and Marcus – as well as five grandchildren.
Andy Graham
District 3
Andy Graham, a decidedly mediocre basketball player on a Westfield Shamrocks team that won 18 games in 1973 (no thanks to him), is a 1978 Indiana University graduated who joined the Bloomington Herald-Telephone (now Herald-Times) staff in 1982. He has quite contentedly worked there ever since, covering both sports and news.
Graham has won many awards over that span, such as the 1997 Corky Lamm Indiana Sportswriter of the Year honor and, more recently, was named the state's top sports columnist in 2012 by the Hoosier State Press Association and the nation's top sports columnist for the H-T's circulation class in 2013 by the Associated Press Sports Editors.
Graham was a 2013 inductee to the Indiana Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame.
He worked alongside Bob Hammel at the H-T, covering virtually every IU football and basketball game for 15 years, before becoming the primary beat writer for IU football. He also covered IU soccer for 19 years, including Coach Jerry Yeagley's first five NCAA championship clubs. He covered the 1987 and 1992 NCAA men's basketball Final Fours and the 2000 NBA Finals.
Graham has served as the primary writer for Indiana high school basketball throughout his H-T sports tenure. He relished perusing papers from around the state to write a weekly statewide-oriented high school basketball column for many years and annually selected the H-T's Top 15 All-State Basketball Team, picked with solicited input from the state's coaches and therefore one of the most respected lists pertaining to Indiana players.
The Top 15 edition was discontinued following Graham’s adjournment in 2001 to the H-T's news side to cover education and the arts – and, most especially, to keep more regular family hours while his sons were growing up. He returned to sports writing in 2010 and counts among his current duties serving as columnist for IU football and as the lead beat writer for Indiana high school boys' basketball and high school baseball. He writes a high school basketball notebook every Monday during the season, writes features and columns, and generally orchestrates coverage of the nine high school teams in the H-T region. He also selects an H-T All-Area Boys' Basketball Team every spring.
A devotee of all things Hoosier Hysteria, Graham made formal presentation of a state basketball tournament format proposal called "The Big Dance Compromise" to both IHSAA Commissioner Bobby Cox, in the fall of 2012, and a distinguished IBCA panel in the spring of 2013.
Graham lives in Bloomington with his wonderful wife, Susie, and their splendid sons, Alex and Evan (when they're home from college), and cats Calvin and Hobbes. He gets to spend lots of time in Indiana's venerable gymnasiums, which only adds to his happiness and gratification. Graham was and is a very fortunate man.
(But he still devoutly wishes the Shamrocks could have knocked off Carmel in that 1973 double-overtime sectional title game, which would have earned them a trip to the ever-wondrous Wigwam.)
Johnny McCrory
District 3
Johnny McCrory arrived at, what was then, WOOO in Shelbyville in 1998.
Now in his 16th season calling play-by-play for high school teams in Shelby County and 21st season overall McCrory has been with the Shelbyville radio station through two call-letter changes. The most recent, in 2007, signaled the beginning of his co-ownership of the station. WSVX AM-1520 now includes an FM station at 96.5 known as Giant 96. McCrory serves as the station’s news and sports director and morning show host. In addition, McCrory hosts a sports talk show called Giant 96 Real Sports.
McCrory’s professional career began as a news and sports director in 1993 at WHPO in Hoopeston, IL, followed by a four year stop in the same role at WACF / WPRS in Paris, IL.
McCrory received the Marv Bates Indiana Sportscaster of the Year from the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association in 2012.
While basketball and football top the list of high school sports coverage, over the years McCrory also handled play-by-play for baseball, softball, volleyball and cross country. He also has called basketball at the collegiate level for Eastern Illinois University.
A graduate of Hutsonville High School in Hutsonville, Ill., McCrory received a Bachelor’s degree in Radio/TV from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1993. While receiving his education, McCrory also broadcast news and play-by-play sports for WIDB, on the SIU-C campus, and at WKZI, Casey, Ill., while covering sports as a writer for the Robinson (Ill.) Daily News.
McCrory has three children – Ethan, Kylie and Jadyn – and lives in Shelbyville.
