Former ‘Mr. Excitement’ Wichita State radio broadcaster, Gus Grebe, dies at age 102
Gus Grebe, known as Mr. Excitement for his colorful radio calls from 1966-73 as the voice of Shocker sports, died Tuesday at the age of 102 in his home in Upland, California, friends confirmed to The Eagle.
Even a near half-century after Grebe left Wichita following an eight-year run as the play-by-play announcer for Wichita State men’s basketball and football games, his signature call — “put it in the ol’ deep freeze,” when WSU was on the brink of victory — and his enthusiasm for Shocker sports are still remembered fondly.
“He was a gregarious person and he had a little Dick Vitale in him before we had ever heard of Dick Vitale,” said Bob Lutz, a former Eagle sports columnist and current host of The Drive on KFH radio. “He was a man of the people. He embraced his role as a broadcaster and a Shocker ambassador. He gravitated towards the fans. He was a very popular individual. I don’t even think most people think of his acumen as a play-by-play person, they think about his enthusiasm and his love for the Shockers. It reverberated through the whole fan base.”
Grebe’s antics are still the stuff of legend.
He was so animated in calling WSU football games that he would sometimes hang from outside of the press box at the top of Cessna Stadium. He did that so much that WSU actually installed a net below in case he ever fell out. He never did.
Another time he climbed on top of his broadcast table during a WSU-Louisville basketball game.
“The first thing that stood out about Gus was his enthusiasm,” said current WSU play-by-play broadcaster Mike Kennedy. “He loved what he did and he loved the Shockers and that came across to everyone. He truly made an impact with fans.”
When interviewed by The Eagle in January 2020, Grebe said he still liked to follow the Shockers from his home in a Los Angeles suburb. When told that Wichita State fans still asked about him, he was tickled.
“I’m surprised that people do remember me after all of these years,” said Grebe, who was then 100 years old. “It certainly makes me feel exceptionally good.”
It’s not a surprise Grebe’s impact is still felt all these years later in talking to Dave Dahl, who was a basketball player at WSU (1968-71) during the same time that Grebe was the voice of the Shockers.
While fans loved him for his fervor, the players came to know a different side to Grebe, who was kind and caring. He made it a priority to get to know the players and almost always had a smile on his face. He would even bring his wife, Mildred, and their two dogs, small poodles, on road trips occasionally.
“I was far from a star player when I was at Wichita State, but he treated me just like he treated everybody else,” Dahl said. “He was always so upbeat and so optimistic. A lot of us were away from our families when we were there and it was almost like he was a family member, like an uncle or something like that.
“The more I got to know Gus, the thing that stood out to me was how much he took the time to get to know the players,” Kennedy said. “He was just really interested in them as people, not just as players. I think that’s something that everybody who played at WSU during that time really appreciated about him. He cared and he took a personal interest.”
But Grebe’s legacy with the WSU fan base will be for the way he was able to describe games working next to Ken Softley, who became the first memorable duo to work Shocker games together.
“Gus and Ken were a great team because they were different,” Lutz said. “Ken was more understated and very attentive to detail and Gus was the rah-rah guy. He was a Shocker through and through. He was as colorful as it gets and people enjoyed listening to him. But the balance he had with Ken, I think they were a remarkable duo.”
Back then, it was extremely rare for a WSU football or basketball game to be televised. If you weren’t at the game, the only way to follow Shocker sports was by listening to Grebe call the games. And he had it down to art how to make games exciting.
Kennedy and Dahl say they do around 10 hours of prep work before they call WSU basketball games today. Dahl will never forget when he asked Grebe what his process was.
“He told he would show up to the game, take out one sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle and write WSU on one side and the opponent on the other,” Dahl said. “Then he would find out the five starters and their numbers. And that was the extent of his preparation.
“He told me, ‘Sports on the radio back then were more personality-driven. It was perfect for me and for the type of man that I was.’ He really was the right man at the right time.”
After moving to California in 1973, Grebe did his best to remain attached to WSU over the years. He was on the other plane during the fateful 1970 WSU football plane crash that killed 29 people at the scene and Grebe returned to Wichita several times for anniversaries and memorials.
His time in Wichita still lives on during current WSU basketball radio broadcasts, as his signature phrase “put it in the ol’ deep freeze” is used for the game’s winning play in a segment sponsored by Lytton’s Appliance.
“It’s obviously a sad day, but I think it’s more of a celebration because you think about the great, long life that he had and all of the lives he impacted,” Kennedy says. “Gus was just a really nice man. One of the nicest people that you will ever meet.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 11:53 AM.
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