GNAC’s Bob Guptil earns CoSIDA’s 25-Year honor
by Linda Chalich, Washington State
PULLMAN, WA – Great Northwest Athletic Conference Sports Information Director Bob Guptil will receive a College Sports Information Director’s of America (CoSIDA) 25-year Award on Tuesday, July 6, in San Francisco, Calif.
Guptil, in his ninth year with the GNAC, will accept the honor at a luncheon ceremony during CoSIDA’s annual convention at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis.
The CoSIDA 25-Year Award is presented to sports information directors who have completed 25 years in the profession.
Guptill began his association with collegiate sports information by working in the Washington State University sports information office as an undergraduate for director Mike Wilson.
He spent copious hours in the library reading microfiche in order to compile record sections for football, baseball and men’s basketball media guides. His records include game-by-game summaries and scores, and team and individual records for every athlete who ever competed in a WSU uniform in these sports. These records have been priceless to all the men and women who have worked at WSU since.
Guptill served as the scorer for the USA team at the World Amateur Baseball Tournament in Florida and was the official scorer at the Pac-8 baseball playoffs in 1971 and1973.
After graduating from Washington State in 1974, Guptill became the sports editor at The Dalles (Oregon) Chronicle newspaper. He took on the Oregon State high school baseball playoffs scoring duties from 1976-79.
He moved to the sports editor position at the Ellensburg Daily Record (Washington) in 1979-80, and then became the sports information director at Central Washington University in Ellensburg where he worked for 20 years.
In addition to his duties at CWU, he was the public relations director for the Pacific Northwest Athletic Conference (1994-98), the Columbia Football Association (1985-2001), the Northwest Football Conference (1996) and Evergreen Football Conference (1984).
He has worked at many NAIA National Championships tournaments including being the media assistant and official scorer for baseball from 1985-91 and for wrestling in 1992-93. He also served as the press assistant for track and field in 1992-93, and was responsible for coordinating the basketball statistics crew from 1994-98.
In addition to his NAIA work, Guptill was the press assistant for the baseball and judo venues at the 1990 Goodwill Games.
Guptill received the Ike Pearson Award in 1990, given to the NAIA Sports Information Director of the Year. He was inducted into the Central Washington University Hall of Fame in 2000.