Media
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.”
