News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
After a more than 30 year career covering Tennessee Tech athletics, Rob Schabert has been named to the Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame.
The long-time Sports Information Director at Tech, Schabert becomes the the 89th member of the hall, which first elected members in 1977.
“I just went, ‘Holy cow,’ because I worked all those years. I knew who was going into the OVC Hall of Fame from year-to-year,” Schabert said. “And they are just unbelievable people from the league’s history. Some of the most impressive people I ever met in the league and they’re in the Hall of Fame.”
Schabert came to Cookeville in 1982, typing on electric typewriters. He saw his work go from serving the media outlets that covered Tech to becoming a media outlet.
“The website, Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all the other outlets,” Schabert said. “So the way we got the word out and then the tools that became available to us with video and all that stuff, that’s the big change. It’s no longer what I got into the business to do, which was to be a writer and a photographer and a designer. I still got to do some of those things, but you had to keep pace with all those other technological advances.”
Schabert said he always tried to remember one basic rule in covering Tennessee Tech athletics.
“In all those years working at Tennessee Tech, good times, bad, whatever, I never allowed myself or my staff to lose focus on our student athletes,” Schabert said. “And so whatever the story was, we always found a way to tell the story of the kids. And so I’m proud of that. We really pushed this story about the kids out there, the student athletes that came through.”
For all his years knowing who would be entering the Hall of Fame, Schabert said he always considered them to be the very best. He said he could not believe he would be included in that group, calling it humbling.
Schabert will join former Belmont Mens Basketball Coach Rick Byrd as an inductee. Because of COVID-19, an induction will not be held this year, but OVC officials will honor the three inductees through the year.
