HOF Media

Name: Bill Maloney

Year Inducted: 1983

Category: Media

Schools / Organizations:
St. Ita-Olympian

Biography:  Bill Maloney was coaching high school youngsters in basketball, softball and bowling on a volunteer basis when World War II came along to provide inspiration for a newsletter. Prevented from enlisting by a heart ailment, Maloney started mailing the folksy reports to neighborhood men and woman in the military in the summer of 1942. Maloney’s newsletter, St. Ita-Olympian was a 8-12 page vehicle recording births, marriages, graduations, retirements, promotions transfers, athletic exploits and other human events which was distributed to people in all 50 states and seven foreign countries. St. Ita refers to the Catholic Church and grade school at Broadway and Catalpa Avenues in Chicago; Olympian is the name of a sports club started in 1938 to get a lot of neighborhood kids off the truant lists and into competitive athletics. The first issue of two pages was mimeographed in Maloney’s home and dispatched to 20 GI’s, most of them Olympian club members. Maloney coached the Columbus Olympians, champions of Illinois in Knights of Columbus basketball. A graduate of St. George High School and Loyola University, Maloney, became an independent petroleum products broker. Maloney broke about even on the $1,000 cost of each of the three issues per year. Each of the 3,500 issues now printed by a letter service starts as a draft written in long hand. For many, Maloney’s newsletter was their own link left to Chicago and its rich basketball traditions.  Bill Maloney passed away on June 2, 1989 at the age of 68.

Name: Tim Scott

Year Inducted: 2012

Category: Media

Schools / Organizations:
Pontiac High School
IHSA
 

Biography:  Tim has been a fixture for 20+ years as a color analyst at WJEZ Radio in Pontiac.  He has been involved in various sports shows in addition to the many games he has broadcast with play-by-play partner, Mark Myre (IBCA HOF inductee in 2015).  Tim has been behind the microphone for IHSA State Championships in football, basketball, baseball, and volleyball.  He has worked thousands of hours promoting young athletes.  Myre calls him "the best analyst in the game."

Name: Frank Bussone

Year Inducted: 1983

Category: Media

Schools / Organizations:
WMBD
WEEK-TV

Biography:  Frank Bussone served as network anchor broadcaster for television for the Illinois High School Association Boys’ and Girls’ class A and AA basketball tournaments for the several seasons. He also did television play-by-play of IHSA super-sectionals in Bradley’s Robertson Fieldhouse from 1973 through 1978. He did radio play-by-play of IHSA boy’s tournaments for Peoria’s WMBD from 1962-1965. He provided television coverage of the boy’s tournaments from 1970-1979 for Peoria WEEK-TV, the station for which he became the station manager. In addition, he was an anchor announcer for Bradley basketball. Frank was inducted into the Bradley University Hall of Fame in 1988.  Frank was on the microphone for 2 of the greatest games in Illinois basketball history.  In 1981, he broadcast the 7 overtime game between Bradley and Cincinnati from Robertson Memorial Fieldhouse.  This remains the longest game in NCAA history.  The 2^nd highlight for Frank was the broadcast of the classic 3 overtime IHSA title game between East St. Louis Lincoln and Peoria Central in 1989.  Frank Bussone died on March 15, 2017 at the age of 74.

Name: Stew Salowitz

Year Inducted: 2012

Category: Media

Schools / Organizations:
Illinois Wesleyan University
WJBC
 

Biography:   Longtime Illinois Wesleyan University Sports Information Director Stew Salowitz retired on Aug. 30, 2019.   A 1976 Illinois Wesleyan graduate, Salowitz had served as the school's Sports Information Director since November 1988. In addition to handling publicity for IWU's 22 varsity sports, Salowitz contributed to the University's general news coverage and the IWU alumni magazine.  Stew received a 25 Year Service Award (2014) from the College Sports Information Directors of America.

In addition to a number of College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin tournaments, he handled media arrangements for:
• 2010 and 2011 NCAA Division III women's basketball championships (hosted by IWU);
• 2007 and 2008 NCAA Division III national volleyball championships (hosted by IWU);
• 2000 and 2005 NCAA Division III national indoor track championships (at Shirk Center);
• 2000 NCAA Division III national women's golf championship (held at Bloomington's Prairie Vista Golf Course);
• 25 NCAA Division III women's basketball tournament games (including the first/second and sectional rounds in both 2009 and 2010);
• 21 NCAA Division III men's basketball tournament games;
• nine NCAA Division III softball regionals (2002, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019);
• six Division III regional baseball tournaments (2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2011);
• three NCAA Division III softball super-regionals (2014, 2018, 2019);
• three NCAA Division III lacrosse men's and women's regional games (2018, 2019);
• one Division III regional volleyball tournament (2017);
• five Division III football playoff games (1992, 2009, 2001, 2013 and 2017);
• and the NCAA Division III women's soccer first- and second-round games in 2013, 2015 and 2016

He also served in an official capacity for IWU athletic trips to Hawaii (men's and women's basketball 2002), Italy (football 2001), France (football 2005) and Spain (men's basketball 2016).  A member of the College Sports Information Directors of America, he was responsible for Illinois Wesleyan earning the CoSIDA Phil Langan Graduate Internship Grant in 2010.  Salowitz's free-lance articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Sports Collectors Digest, and the USA Today and he is the author of four books - two on McLean County sports history, a nationally-published book on collecting baseball memorabilia, and Chicago's Personality Radio, about WLS radio in the 1960s.  A native of Normal, Ill., he was the afternoon personality and a sportscaster for WJBC Radio in Bloomington from 1977 to 1988 and his afternoon show was consistently one of the highest-rated in the nation. Salowitz was listed in the first and third editions of "Who's Who in Entertainment."