Weir is Wash. Sportscaster of the Year

WAITSBURG - Eastern Washington University broadcaster and Waitsburg native Larry Weir is pleased to join the ranks of his longtime role model, Bob Robertson, by earning the title of National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Washington Sportscaster of the Year. Weir, who has provided the play-by-play for EWU basketball and football games for over 20 years, was selected as the 2014 award recipient on Jan. 7 and will be honored at a ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., in June.

The 1979 Waitsburg High graduate, who participated in high school basketball, baseball and football, is the son of the Carol Weir and the late Bob Weir. He reflected somewhat regretfully on his high school and post-secondary years in an interview with The Times.

"I was not a very motivated student and really wanted to move on to the next part of life. Looking back today – not a very smart move. I tell kids at every opportunity, to go to college and get a degree," he said.

Weir said that from a very young age – maybe seven or so – he enjoyed listening to Washington State University games with his dad. Those games were called by Robertson, who has received the NSSA Washington Sportscaster of the Year Award 15 times since 1964. Weir learned and honed his play-by-play broadcasting skills by listening to Robertson.

"As I got older I would keep the statistics of the game from Bob's radio call and to this day I use the same method as I started doing 40-ish years ago," said Weir. "I tell young broadcasters to find a style of scoring a game that is comfortable for them. They think I'm nuts because there are computer monitors with all that information at college games. But I say you never know where you might go where there are no monitors, so if you want to relate any statistical information to the listener, they have to keep their own stats and get used to doing it."

Anxious to get started in sportscasting, Weir attended a broadcasting school in Spokane straight out of high school. He attended a Waitsburg district playoff basketball game at WSU, where he sat at the top of Beasley Coliseum and did a play-by-play, speaking into a cassette recorder. Wier sent the demo off to KENE radio in Toppenish, Wash., and got hired because they needed someone to do a play-by-play of a big Native American basketball tournament and their regular broadcaster had a conflict.

"I ended up doing well enough that they offered me the job of News Director. What can an 18-year-old kid tell an adult about the news?" said Weir. He realized he wasn't ready for that job and enrolled in WWCC where he earned his associates degree while driving to Toppenish on the weekends to call football and basketball for two years, which is how he got his start in sportscasting.

Weir attended EWU briefly before leaving school to take a full time radio job. The following years brought work in Yakima, Walla Walla, Colfax, Boise, Spokane, Elko, Nev. and Kingman, Ariz. They included stints with the Spokane Indians and Yakima Bears semi-professional baseball teams. Weir said his longest stay in one place was eight years in Pullman at KQQQ-AM/KHTR-FM, while still doing EWU games on the weekends.

Today, Weir lives in Spokane and travels with the EWU football and men's basketball teams. After nearly a quarter century of calling play-by-play, Weir is considered by many to be the voice of EWU. He recently completed his 24th season calling Eagle football, missing only one of Eastern's 286 football games from 1991-2014. And he missed that game because he was broadcasting Eastern basketball games from Alaska. Weir has called nearly 600 EWU basketball games in his 22 seasons on the job, only missing games due to conflicts with football.

In addition to his play-by-play duties, Weir hosts weekly radio shows, produces the "Eagle Minute" and other advertising spots, does podcasts with EWU coaches and staff and provides oversight of all the content aired during his broadcasts. He also serves as master of ceremonies at many EWU events.

Weir's broadcasts can be heard on 700-AM ESPN in Spokane or on the internet at http://www.700espn.com.

The best part of the job? Weir said it's that he gets paid to watch games instead of having to pay to watch. "The most enjoyable thing for me has been relationships built with players and coaches - and families of those people as well. That's been a little unexpected. The internet has made it so easy to listen from anywhere, and people do. The EWU basketball team has players from Australia, Germany and Serbia as well as most western states," said Weir.

Weir, who was a finalist for the Sportscaster of the Year Award in 2010, is pleased to receive the award that Robertson won so many times. "The NSSA award is voted on by media members from within the state, so it's an award voted on by peers, which makes it a little more special in my eyes," he said. Weir is one of only four eastern Washington broadcasters to have won the award, including Frank Herron (Spokane, 1959), Bud Nameck (Spokane/WSU 1994, 2008) and of course, Bob Robertson.