Next time you’re sitting in the bleachers at a Redlands East Valley basketball recreation — boys or girls — look ahead to Kirk Escher.
Or at a Citrus Valley volleyball match.
Football? Yes.
Wrestling in high school, university basketball.
If you don’t spot him, you’ll at least listen to him.
He’s been given the voice. Escher is the person at the microphone—not to mention working the scoreboard—during handfuls and handfuls of prep games, including a frosh and J.V. game. “It’s a pleasure,” he tells parents when the video games are wrapped up and they’re beginning to sweep the floors.
Escher, 65, is a trainer’s assistant at Orangewood High School, the Redlands Unified School District continuation school. He’s also the campus athletic director. If a basketball or volleyball sport breaks out someplace in Redlands, probabilities are that he’s sitting directly in front of a microphone.
“From November through January,” Escher expected, “I, in all likelihood, do 100 games.”
It’s a surprising quantity, considering his total workload. That workload may want to include video games at both Redlands and Redlands East Valley. He’s been noticed at Citrus Valley video games, volleyball protected, and wrestling. At Dodge Field, he has been heard calling football video games for Redlands High School. His wife, Marilu, works the scoreboard while he’s voicing the game over the P.A. System.
REV soccer, he’ll paint the scoreboard.
His begin? When Rhonda Fouch, REV’s athletic director, requested him to pitch in approximately ten years again, Escher seized the instant and risked. Escher has related with Fouch, the girls’ A.D., and boys’ A.D. Robert Thompkins, not to mention Citrus Valley A.D. Boyd Lium and Redlands’ Michael Pfeiffer.
When he showed up at the San Bernardino Kiwanis Tournament a few years back at Arroyo Valley High, “a guy that knew me” asked if I’d do their video games. “On the last day of the tournament,” he says, “there are five or six games. That’s very taxing.”
He’s been the voice at the Kiwanis ever since.
Yes, he gets paid. That Kiwanis connection, incidentally, got Escher related to Arroyo Valley’s boys’ and ladies’ groups. Lady Hawks’ educate Michael Anderson invited him to reveal up to paintings of San Bernardino Valley ladies’ games. For a while, Anderson became the Lady Wolverines’ assistant train.
“But he is known as me to mention not to return over. Their (head educator) was being investigated for slicing a couple of players from the crew. So I didn’t do it.” That wasn’t the case of his collegiate connection. Sports Information Director/Assistant Athletic Director Rachel Roche stated, “Invited me to run the scoreboard for the University of Redlands football games this 12 months. I think I’ll do it.”
Roche, in all likelihood, figured he could manage those duties after surfacing during the Bulldogs’ men’s and ladies’ hoops seasons.
The 20-12 months Air Force veteran, an Iowa original, graduated from Cal State San Bernardino in 2003. “A past due to bloomer,” he stated. There are four Escher youngsters, three of whom were athletes. After the oldest, Marissa (1996 Redlands High grad), Stacy (1997 Redlands) performed basketball and ran song; Matt became a basketball player in REV’s first graduating magnificence (1999), and Natalie (2010) ran track at REV now not to mention gambling on a number of the Lady Wildcats’ top football facets.
Think approximately the quantity of gymnasiums he’ll walk into.
Speaking of tournaments, like the Kiwanis, he’s also labored the Dolores Dudek at Arroyo Valley and the REV Invitational — each women’s hoops tournament. That Arroyo Valley/REV basketball ordinary season battle is easily remedied.
It’s simple: Arroyo Valley performs a Wednesday-Friday configuration for the duration of league play. REV is on the Tuesday-Thursday schedule. “Arroyo Valley fans are rowdies,” he stated. “Their parents genuinely get into it, so worried about the one’s games. It’s a distinctive story over in Redlands.”
He’d shifted to Citrus Valley some years back when REV couldn’t pay him — volleyball and basketball. He stated that Citrus Valley’s boys’ and ladies’ volleyball train, Tina Raddish, pulled him into voice and scoreboard responsibilities on the Blackhawks’ court docket.
No baseball?
“I did Yucaipa Little League a pair years lower back.”
Wrestling, he said, becomes “intimidating. I’m still unsure of how traits factor.”
Redlands High boys’ basketball assistant Coy Glass may have some fun, prompting Escher to play with the introductions at Terrier video games.
