Chuck Schoffner

He came to Iowa from Indiana knowing little about track and field. Chuck Schoffner was born in Lima, Ohio and lived there for 16 years before his family moved to South Bend, Indiana. He played basketball and baseball at Clay High School, graduating in the spring of 1968. He made the move to Des Moines in the fall of ’68 and graduated from Drake University in 1972. After being exposed to the Drake Relays as a Drake Journalism major, Chuck Schoffner has become a great ambassador of our sport.
Chuck attended his first Drake Relays in 1969, as a student, after being hired by longtime Drake coach Gary Osborne to help with meet preparation. He has not missed America’s Athletic Classic since. For the most part, Chuck has been a “behind the scenes” kind of guy but it his work “on the scene” that has led to his winning the Laverne Kloster Service Award. After graduating from Drake, Chuck embarked on a long and rewarding career as a sports and feature writer and editor, for United Press International and The Associated Press, retiring in 2005. With the AP, Chuck was the national women’s basketball writer. He has covered 5 Olympic Games and a number of men’s and women’s Final Fours.
In track and field, Chuck worked in media information his last 3 years as a Drake student, and then covered the meet during his working career. Upon retiring, Chuck was invited to be a member of the Relays Committee. He is chair of the subcommittee that picks the high school participants. In addition to being on the Relays Committee, Chuck writes a feature story each year for the program and works in media information, providing daily wrap-ups and useful information for the throng of media personnel attending The Relays. Chuck has also worked in the same capacity for the NCAA and USATF meets that Drake has hosted. Chuck began covering the Iowa high school state meet in the mid ’70s while working for UPI and AP. Since retiring, he continues to work at the state meet, but in a somewhat different capacity. He sits in the booth with Bud Legg and I talking with Bud about the Cleveland Indians, knowing “that next year is their year”; reciting verbatim the lyrics to any 50’s or 60’s rock and roll song that comes to mind and providing me, and the media with wonderful, useful nuggets of information on participating athletes and teams.
Chuck also chairs the Hall of Fame committees for the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, coordinating the selection of athletes in track and field, basketball, softball, and volleyball. He is a “behind the scenes kind of guy”, but it is that work behind the scenes that helps our Iowa athletes get the recognition they deserve and make those people “on the scene” sound and look like they know what they are doing! He and his wife Pam, a Drake Journalism grad herself are still very active writers.