Elbert leaves an everlasting impression

I have only known Joey Elbert for the past three years since I took my current job at the Dickinson County News, but the impact he has left with me has been an impressionable one. Joey lived his life the exact same way he announced games, with a ton of passion, excitement and a true love for what he did. He was the most genuine person I've ever met and being around him made me want to be a better person.

In today's day and age, we always hear about the bad news that occurs in the wide world of sports, such as the Tiger Woods cheating scandal or the Michael Vick dogfighting ring, but Joey constantly focused on the positives that were happening in the Iowa Great Lakes region. He cared more about how Josh Bolluyt was shaping his Spirit Lake football team into upstanding young men, than those other things that so many of us unfortunately dwell on.

I've had the opportunity to meet some pretty outstanding human beings while working in this field, including Aaron Thomas, the son of iconic Aplington-Parkersburg football coach Ed Thomas, Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz and Iowa State men's basketball coach Greg McDermott. All three of these men are class acts that run quality programs, but none of have left an impact on me quite like Joey did.

I best remember Joey for what I called his Joey-isms, which are words he made up to describe what was going on while play-by-play announcing. Most great radio personalities are known for one great catch phrase, but Joey had hundreds of them. "He really BRETT FARVED that one" and "that was a real HUMDINGER" are a few of my personal favorites. "SPLASH" also became of trademark of his on the call of a made three-pointer.

Harris-Lake Park volleyball coach Daryl Meyer remembers a humble Elbert commenting about being inducted into the Iowa High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame last March. "It's always been about the kids...not the loudmouths in the announcing booth," Elbert quipped after receiving the honor.

That one line truly sums up what Joey was all about. He loved the kids on the court or the field, he loved their coaches, he loved giving the fans a show and he loved describing the games with so much love and exuberance that it kept him in Dickinson County all these years.

"He was talented person that probably could have went a lot of places," said Bolluyt, who has coached and played at Spirit Lake during Elbert's 20-year tenure at KUOO/Q102 Radio. "But he chose to stay here and we were blessed to have him here."

Spirit Lake boys basketball coach John Walz thought of him as the Dick Vitale of high school sports and always enjoyed chatting back and forth with him in a postgame interview. "When I first got the job, with him being an Iowa fan and me being an Iowa State fan, he always like to have me imitate Johnny Orr," said Walz. "We'd always finish close games imitating Orr. He always ended our conversations saying 'that game was a real dinger wasn't it?'"

Elbert lived his entire life with enthusiasm and with the hope of bringing a smile to other people's face and many of his qualities have rubbed off on each and every one of us.