Haskell Indian Nations University is mourning the death of ABC Sports broadcaster Chris Schenkel, a supporter who used his celebrity to raise funds for and awareness of the school.

“We are honored to call Chris Schenkel a member of the Haskell family,” said university spokeswoman Lori Tapahonso. “Haskell has been privileged to have had his support from the moment he first stepped on campus, all through his career and even in his final days. He will be missed.”

One of the nation’s best-known sportscasters, Schenkel died Sept. 11. He was 82.

“He was very generous to Haskell,” said Jerry Tuckwin, a former athletics director at Haskell.

Schenkel helped lead efforts to restore the Olympic gold medals taken from Jim Thorpe in a 1912 dispute over his amateur status. And he lent his celebrity to Haskell, promoting the school on-air in 1973, speaking at the school’s centennial banquet in 1984 – and demanding that proceeds from a 1993 tribute to him go to the university.

Former ABC Sports broadcaster Chris Schenkel, left, joins then-Haskell Indian Junior College Coach Wayne Postoak during the national American Indian cross country championship in 1974 at Haskell.

Schenkel often told friends that while growing up on a farm in Bippus, Ind., he witnessed his father resist discriminating against the area’s Miami Indians.

“As a youngster, he saw them put upon unfairly and I think it made an impression that lasted the rest of his life,” said Bernie Kish, facilities director at Kansas University’s Robinson Center and a former executive director at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind.

Fortunate meeting

It was during a pre-Sugar Bowl gathering in 1972 that Schenkel met Claude Sumner, a Haskell alumnus.

Sumner, now executive director at Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Okmulgee, Okla., said Schenkel jumped at the chance to “help Haskell. He gave me his phone number and said to have Haskell call him.”

Sumner forwarded the number to Tuckwin, who called Schenkel. “He befriended Haskell,” Tuckwin said.

In 1973, Schenkel, accompanied by former Oklahoma football coach Bud Wilkerson and former Michigan football coach Duffy Daugherty, came to Lawrence to broadcast the Kansas University vs. Colorado football game.

“(Schenkel) called me and said they were going to be in town and wanted to know if they could come out,” said Tuckwin’s predecessor, Wayne Postoak.

“I picked them up at the airport on a Friday and took them to what was then the Ramada Inn,” Postoak said. “The next day, I brought them out to Haskell. From that point on, I had a friend in Chris Schenkel.”

Postoak said Schenkel used to invite him to stops on the Professional Bowlers Assn. Tour.

“He’d have me wear a Haskell warm-up, and then he’d have me sit right behind the bowlers, so I’d be on camera all the time,” Postoak said. “He did it to promote Haskell.”

Schenkel addressed Haskell’s 1973 fall sports banquet, where he promised to mention Haskell during the upcoming Liberty Bowl broadcast. During the banquet, Postoak presented Schenkel with a special plaque that included a peace pipe.

Accepting the honor, Schenkel replied: “I’ve been nominated six times for Emmys and I’m 0-and-6, but let me tell you, this (plaque) means more to me than any Emmy I could get.”

Generous example

Schenkel was the featured speaker at the Haskell Centennial Banquet in 1984.

“He never took a speaker’s fee,” Tuckwin said. “We tried to pay him, but he wouldn’t let us.”

Schenkel’s contributions to Haskell peaked in 1993 when ABC Sports coordinated a gala tribute, “A Salute to Chris Schenkel,” on his 70th birthday.

“They wanted to make a fuss over him,” Tuckwin said. “But he said the only way he’d go along with it was if they turned it into a fundraiser for Haskell, which they did.”

The event raised almost $100,000 for the Haskell Foundation, which, five years later, was marred by scandal when its then-director, Gerald “Gerry” Burd, embezzled at least $100,000, leaving the foundation on the brink of bankruptcy. Burd was later sentenced to a year in prison.

Schenkel’s funeral is today in Huntington, Ind. He is survived by his wife, Fran, sons Ted and John, daughter Tina, and three grandchildren. Haskell athletic director Dwight Pickering will attend, representing the university.

“He was,” Postoak said, “one of the most sincere people you’d ever meet.”