By: Evan O’Kelly, Associate Commissioner for Communications
PORTLAND, Ore. – Robert Guptill, a university sports activities Hall of Famer and one of many founding figures of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, handed away in Pullman, Wash., on May 17, 2026 after a prolonged battle with Parkinson’s illness. He was 76.
Guptill was a pillar within the basis of the GNAC within the fall of 2001, holding the place of the league’s first sports activities data director by way of his retirement in the summertime of 2015. The architect of the league’s scheduling fashions, document books and statistical procedures, the GNAC was immediately an business chief in these areas from its inception. His legacy and the influence of his work has had notable permanence, as the inspiration he laid has allowed for the convention to keep up correct and complete historic information.
Guptill was inducted into the Central Washington University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001 and acquired the Lifetime Achievement award from College Sports Communicators (then-CoSIDA) upon his retirement in 2015, honoring 25-plus years of service within the sports activities data business.
He was born on April 3, 1950 in Colfax, Wash., the place he graduated from Colfax High School in 1969. After finishing a journalism diploma at Washington State University, he served as sports activities editor for The Dalles Chronicle from 1975-79. Guptill then moved to Ellensburg, Wash., the place he was appointed sports activities data director at Central Washington University serving from 1980-2000.
He is survived by his brother Chuck (Pam) Guptill at Diamond, Wash., and by his sister, Angela Marlene (Tim) Bowman in Burien, Wash., in addition to 2 nieces and 5 nephews. He was preceded in dying by his mother and father. No service is deliberate. Read the complete obituary online here.
A LIFE’S WORK: BOB GUPTILL’S LEGENDARY CAREER AS SID COMES TO A CLOSE
(Note: The under story was revealed on June 26, 2015 upon Guptill’s retirement. | By: Evan O’Kelly)
Throughout its 15-year historical past, the Great Northwest Athletic Conference has served tens of hundreds of student-athletes, representing the premier venue of competitors on the NCAA Division II degree within the Pacific Northwest.
Since its inaugural season in 2001-02 when its solely championships had been cross nation and out of doors observe and area, it has expanded tremendously because it now presents 13 championships. With Concordia University being the newest addition as a full-time member, it serves as a reminder that the GNAC continues to develop and alter every year.
Student-athletes, coaches, and workers from the convention’s 11 member colleges have come and gone all through the years, contributing their respective parts to the GNAC’s historical past. The bodily location of the convention workplace has even modified, shifting from Spokane, Wash., to Portland, Ore., in 2012.
But from Day 1, there was a single fixed. One man who has been there for each pitch, tipoff, beginning gun and whistle, and whose work has been unparalleled all through the GNAC’s historical past and over the previous 4 a long time general.
After saying his retirement from his place as data director for the GNAC earlier this spring, Bob Guptill hasn’t had a lot time to think about what his subsequent step might be.
“I have been doing the same thing for 35 years, so it is definitely going to be different,” Guptill stated. “I am definitely going to miss coming into work every day, but I haven’t thought about what I’ll be doing.”
Guptill is not certain how he’ll fill his summer time months, which have been reserved for updating document books and constructing schedules two or three years prematurely.
Perhaps earlier than he shuts his door on the convention workplace one last time, he’ll flip his consideration to the bookcase on his left. Its brown cabinets sag bearing the burden of quite a few black binders, all of that are stuffed to capability. The progressive yellowing of the pages down the rows provides away that they’re organized by 12 months, every completely as a replacement.
What has grow to be an encyclopedia is the complete historical past of the GNAC, every web page compiled by Guptill. Every putout made on the diamond and javelin thrown on the infield is tucked away on that shelf, completely saved in probably the most magnificent document databases within the historical past of school sports activities.
Guptill alone is chargeable for the thoroughness and complexity of the information, and their accuracy and extensiveness are a testomony to his work as an SID. For Guptill, they’re the ultimate chapter in a e-book he began authoring when he started taking statistics for the Colfax High School baseball crew in 1967.
From there, he has gone on to contribute extra data to the world of school sports activities than most ever have, his work spanning three completely different centuries and holding duty for information compiled that date again to the late Nineties.
It is a contribution that can reside on for hundreds of years to come back.
CALL TO A LEGEND
When Guptill started his freshman 12 months at Colfax High in Washington, John Huber held play-by-play duty for the Bulldogs’ athletic groups. “Bob came to me and asked if he could provide stats for me on the broadcasts,” Huber remembered. “Consequentially, he started doing stats on the radio with me, and he ended up working with me for all four years. The stats he gave me were always facts, and he and I got along great.”
Guptill had a knack for math, and a present for calculating percentages in his head. He rapidly discovered these abilities translated properly into the world of sports activities, leaving an impression on Huber that in the end put him on observe for his profession to come back.
As Guptill accomplished his prep years and elected to attend Washington State University, Huber acknowledged that Guptill’s abilities with statistics had been too uncommon to cross up.
“I gave his name to Dick Fry, who was the sports information director at WSU at the time,” Huber recalled. “I told him, ‘here’s a guy who, if you want stats and facts, he is going to get them for you.'”
Fry is a legendary determine on the earth of Cougar Athletics, a World War II veteran who served as sports activities data director at WSU from 1957-70. He acquired the tip on Guptill on the tail finish of his tenure in athletics, however throughout the temporary time they spent collectively Fry might inform instantly that he had a brilliant younger star on his palms.
“I worked closely with Bob in the SID office there, and he was doing a lot of research on the records for football, basketball, and baseball starting from Year 1,” stated Fry. “It was a project I had started, and that he picked up and finished.”
Naturally gravitating in direction of a seemingly unimaginable process, Guptill tracked down newspapers recorded on microfilm from way back to 1892 as he was decided to create a complete historical past of Cougar Athletics.
Bob Guptill as a younger SID.”He stayed up late at night and worked on weekends looking through that microfilm,” Fry stated. “Not only was the print bad, but some of the reproduction was really hazy. He spent hour after hour running through those things. It was a Herculean task, believe me.”
Fry witnessed Guptill’s dedication to the monotonous process, however was unaware on the time the influence that the analysis would in the end have on a challenge of his personal. In 1989, Fry penned the historic e-book, The Crimson & the Gray: One Hundred Years with the WSU Cougars, as a part of the college’s athletic division centennial celebration.
“Practically all of the statistics for that book from Ground Zero up until the 1970s, Bob provided,” Fry stated. “He had everything: Football, basketball, and baseball from Year 1. I couldn’t have written that book without Bob’s material.”
FROM THE COUGS TO THE ‘CATS
What Guptill completed in his 4 years as a pupil at WSU was unprecedented on the earth of sports activities data. Never earlier than had Mike Wilson, who was Fry’s successor as SID and Guptill’s primary information, seen a person so consumed in and captivated with his work.
“He was just a good, solid, hard worker, and what he did was done well,” Wilson stated. “He may have been the first student from WSU who Bobo Brayton took on road trips, because he proved that he deserved to go with the team.”
Brayton, who wound up with 1,162 wins in his profession as head baseball coach of the Cougars, recognized the worth Guptill offered and deemed him a significant a part of WSU’s baseball crew. “Anything that team needed him to do, Bob jumped right in there and was more than happy to do it,” Wilson stated.
Ready to hit the bottom operating after finishing his diploma at WSU, Guptill was employed because the sports activities editor on the Dalles Chronicle (Ore.). He held that place for the following 4 years earlier than relocating to Ellensburg, Wash., and taking over the identical job on the Ellensburg Daily Record for one 12 months in 1979.
Guptill’s early contributions whereas working in sports activities data proved to be too invaluable for him to stray from the business, as a gap for SID at Central Washington University beckoned him in 1980. For the following 20 years, Guptill set a brand new customary for overlaying Wildcat Athletics, changing into a fixture in small school athletics within the northwest.
“What I enjoyed most about my time at Central was the opportunity to work with a lot of great coaches and people,” Guptill stated. “Dean Nicholson was the basketball coach there my first 10 years, and he along with his father are the winningest coaches in the history of collegiate basketball with 1,114 wins.”
Today, the Wildcats’ Nicholson Pavilion is the house courtroom for basketball and volleyball, the ground named after the historic figures in CWU Athletics. Guptill is fast to level out that their mixed win whole is a query within the board sport Trivial Pursuit, certainly one of a myriad of details that has its place on the high of Guptill’s head.
“I have determined that 99.9 percent of the time, you can call and ask Bob a question, and he will know the answer from memory,” stated Rob Lowery, longtime radio voice of Wildcat Athletics. “It could be any question going back to the beginning of the GNAC, his time at Central or at the PacWest, and he can pull the nugget of information. It is absolutely phenomenal.”
Lowery first crossed paths with Guptill when he started broadcasting CWU video games for KXLE radio in Ellensburg in 1985, the place he was rapidly embraced by the latter as he entered a brand new skilled setting. “I knew immediately that Bob was a tremendous resource for me coming into a situation where I would need a lot of background and prep for games,” Lowery stated. “I didn’t know enough about Central at the time to do a good job, and he was invaluable right out of the gate.”
Thirty years later, the 2 have grow to be the closest of buddies and have continued to work collectively by way of the 2014-15 educational 12 months. “For the last 30 years, Rob has handled the play-by-play for Central and we have had a long relationship,” Guptill stated. “He has done a tremendous job for them and he is someone I feel fortunate to have worked with.”
“Bob is a person of absolute top quality in every regard; as a friend, as a colleague, and as a person,” Lowery stated. “There is no finer person I have had the pleasure of knowing in my working life, and it is hard for me to put into words how highly I hold him.”
CHANGING TIMES
“I was one of the quickest folders ever. Once you got it into the envelope, we had a machine that could at least seal it, but you had to do it quickly and have it to the mailing room by noon on Monday.” – Paul Madison on the weekly routine of distributing press releases to the native media.
On the heels of Guptill’s retirement announcement, maybe the one different individual whose tenure within the business dates again as far additionally introduced that he was shifting on. Paul Madison, who has spent the final 47 years general and final 40 as sports activities data director at Western Washington University, has been one of many few constants all through Guptill’s working profession.
“I have worked with Paul since I got to Central, so he and I have had a working relationship for about 35 years,” Guptill stated. “He is the cornerstone of sports information, and when you’re at one school for close to 50 years you’re someone who has been influential on a lot of people, including me. He is certainly someone I’ve enjoyed working with for the past three-plus decades.”
Through this 12 months, Guptill acquired Madison’s GNAC Player of the Week nominations for WWU by way of electronic mail on the finish of every week. Both males are fast to recollect a time when it took far more than the clicking of a button to finish what’s now an instantaneous process.
“After a basketball doubleheader, you’d have to call every newspaper separately, and dictate the box scores and a couple of highlights,” Madison recalled of his early days as an SID which started whereas he was a pupil at WWU in 1966. “We were talking with a real person at the Associated Press after every game, which was nice. We could actually make relationships and get a dialogue going.”
All information and data on the time was fairly actually printed into press, and mailed out as a duty of the SID.
“You would write your release for the week, make a photo copy, and stick it into the envelope to mail out,” Guptill remembered. “Because of the time it took to get to the people who we were targeting, everything had to be done on Monday so it would arrive by Wednesday or Thursday.”
Four a long time later, in a world the place Twitter develops information just about in actual time to a worldwide viewers, Guptill and Madison are two of the pioneers who’ve transcended the varied improvements within the communication business.
“We didn’t have cell phones, by the way, so you had to find a phone booth to report the game if you were on the road with a team,” stated Madison, who additionally hung out as a convention data director. “You would get home around six or seven Monday morning after traveling all night, and by nine or ten people would start calling the conference office for updated statistics.”
As know-how started revolutionizing customary operations for SIDs throughout the nation, phrase of mouth of Guptill’s and Madison’s accomplishments unfold far sufficient to seize consideration on a nationwide stage. In 1993, Madison earned the Clarence “Ike” Pearson Award as the highest sports activities data director within the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. Three years later, Guptill acquired the identical honor earlier than being inducted into the CWU Hall of Fame in 2001. Madison has since been elected to the WWU and College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) halls of fame.
A LIFE’S WORK
“There are not many people who are legendary in the sports information field. There are a lot who are good, some who are great, and then, frankly, there’s Bob.” – Rob Lowery on Bob Guptill.
From the Crimson and the Gray to the Wildcats of CWU to the GNAC, one fixed all through Guptill’s profession has been the standard and dedication to his work. Some have witnessed Guptill’s work by way of numerous views, together with present CWU baseball coach Desi Storey and CWU males’s basketball coach Greg Sparling, who had been every student-athletes at Central whereas Bob was the SID.
“Initially as a player, I didn’t realize that Bob was covering all of the sports here,” Storey stated. “As a coach, it was great having him there because he was always on top of everything. He helped me in terms of scheduling as well as learning new rules.”
“Bob has done a tremendous job, not just during his time as the only sports information director the GNAC has ever known, but in his previous stops at Central Washington and the PacWest Conference,” stated GNAC commissioner Dave Haglund. “He has always taken great pride in delivering timely and accurate information on behalf of the student-athletes, coaches, administrators and fans he served. He truly is a living history book of the GNAC and small-college athletics in the Pacific Northwest, and his work will live on for generations to come.”
As Guptill places the ending touches on his historic profession, what stands out probably the most might be what he has constructed from the bottom up with the GNAC. After serving to set up the athletics document books at WSU and CWU, Guptill had a chance to start out at Square 1 with the GNAC and create a residing historical past in actual time.
“It was pretty much the opposite of what I did with my research before, because I had basically gone back 70-80 years in the history of those schools,” Guptill stated. “The fact that (the GNAC) was a brand new conference meant we could create the statistical history from the very beginning.”
Guptill will miss the problem of making schedules with the GNAC’s distinctive journey, staying up late on Saturdays to obtain outcomes from basketball video games in Alaska, and naturally the each day Subway sandwiches for lunch. What he treasures most, nevertheless, are the relationships he has constructed with colleagues and having had the chance to serve the complete business.
“The main thing I have always thought is that providing information to all of the SIDs in the conference was essential, and that was my main goal,” Guptill stated. “I wanted to do everything that I could possibly do to assist SIDs in the coverage of their teams. That’s why I have always thought keeping accurate and historical information was so important. Hopefully I’ve accomplished that.”