Booster just wants good game

On a night when Central High School's cheering section came up with creative chants to make up for a 34-point loss to Notre Dame, finally resorting to "we can't hear you," one basketball fan was just hoping for a good game.

He's had the same outlook for more than 40 years.

Bob Evans is Cape Girardeau's No. 1 sports booster. Evans is in a wheelchair these days, but that doesn't stop him from attending every Central, Notre Dame and Southeast Missouri State University basketball game. And it won't get in the way of his ability to roam the sidelines at all the Central and Southeast football games during the fall.

"We like loyal fans like him," said Central athletic director Mark Ruark. "I remember him coming to all the games even back in the '80s when I coached the girls team. He's a big Tiger fan. In the old Tiger Field House there used to be this orange rubber surface on the floor. He came right onto it in his wheelchair. Somebody had to go get him his hot dog and soda, but he was always there."

Evans has had a lifelong love affair with sports. In the early 1960s he played high school basketball and baseball for a private school in New York.

"I played. How well I did is arguable," he joked.

He soon realized if he wanted to stay in athletics he'd have to do it from the sidelines.

"I was pitching, and I gave up what may have been the biggest home run ever hit in the state of New York. It may not have come down yet," he said.

So while attending college at Southeast Missouri State University, he worked for the Southeast Missourian covering high school sports and stayed on at the paper after graduating. He never looked back and worked as a sports reporter at various papers for several decades.

Along the way he covered three World Series and a major league All-Star Game.

"I've had the honor of meeting a lot of great players and going to a lot of great games," he said.

One of the greatest basketball players he ever saw was Greg Flaker, who graduated from Notre Dame in 1967 and went on to play for Norm Stewart at the University of Missouri.

"I nominated Flaker for the All-State team, and that was something I was proud of," Evans said.

But throughout his career, Evans was fighting a degenerative condition. He survived a car crash in 1965 in which his Ford Falcon was crushed by a semitrailer. The accident left him paralyzed on the left side of his body. Though he learned how to type and drive with one hand, the condition has steadily worsened.

Today he lives in an apartment in the Lutheran Home on Bloomfield Road. He pays a driver to take him to all the games on his busy schedule and rarely misses one.

"They give me something to look forward to and a chance to get out of my apartment in the Lutheran Home," he said.

Those on both sides of the game agree having Evans at the game is a good thing.

"He was a sports editor when I played and did a good job. He still has a good mind and calls me up once a week," said Notre Dame basketball coach and athletic director Paul Hale. "He's a good Notre Dame booster and a real big fan of Notre Dame and all sports. He's one of our best fans."

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245