Three to receive 2025 'Virgil Sweet Award' from IBCA
Welter, Rakestraw, Brochin to be honored by coaches' group for contributions to basketball
Three individuals with significant ties to Indiana high school basketball will be recognized with Virgil Sweet Awards from the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association in 2025, it was announced Monday (March 17).
Harold Welter of WKVI Radio in Knox, Greg Rakestraw of the ISC Sports Network in Indianapolis and Mark Brochin of WWBL Radio in Washington are the recipients of this year's awards. One person is honored from each IHSAA district -- Welter in District 1, Rakestraw in District 2 and Brochin in District 3.
Virgil Sweet Awards are presented to those who have provided meritorious service in the promotion of basketball across Indiana. The award is named in honor of Sweet, a former Valparaiso High School basketball coach and executive director of the IBCA from 1974 through 1984. Sweet passed away on June 7, 2023.
This is the 50th year that the IBCA has presented an award or awards for service to basketball beyond coaching. A single winner was named from 1974 through 1979. Multiple winners have been named from 1980 to the present, although no winners were named in 1991 (no clinic was held that year) or 2021 (when the 2020 winners were honored because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
A list of winners from over the years -- plus a bio of Virgil Sweet -- are beneath the biographies of the 2025 winners.
This year's awards will be presented as part of the 2025 IBCA Clinic on April 24-25 at Mt. Vernon High School in Fortville, Ind. For more information about the IBCA, go to in.nhsbca.org.
Here is more information about each Sweet Award honoree for 2025.
Harold Welter
Harold Welter has been best-known as a play-by-play announcer who began covering high school sports in 1965 at WRIN Radio in Rensselaer and continued at WLOI Radio in LaPorte. Over 57 years and in part of six decades, he broadcast more than 3,500 sporting events, traveling more than 250,000 miles to 147 different locations to call games.
Since establishing WKVI Radio in Knox as its first general manager at age 24, Welter has concentrated on covering high school sports at nine area schools – Knox, North Judson, Oregon-Davis, Winamac, West Central, John Glenn, Culver Community, South Central (Union Mills) and Tri-Township (formerly known as LaCrosse). Welter’s radio play-by-play on WKVI has been featured on ABC-TV’s “NightLine” and his signature shout of “unbelievable” when witnessing exciting plays has been a familiar refrain for three generations of players in the Kankakee Valley area.
Welter stepped away from his radio career in 1973 to become a congressional assistant in Washington, D.C. He returned to Knox in 1975 to start Financial Partners of Knox LLC and to return to the airwaves on WKVI. Welter has also covered college sports, but his main focus has been high school sports. He has done play-by-play for basketball, football, baseball, softball, volleyball and wrestling.
He also has hosted the “Saturday Sportsline” coaches’ interview show on WKVI for more than 50 years with guests including six Hall of Fame coaches. He continues to contribute to the Saturday show by interviewing players he has covered with a weekly segment called “Where Are They Now?” He has used radio sportscasting as a positive vehicle for listeners and for promoting young people. He has taught classes for high school-age students at his church and frequently speaks with high school classes about life’s challenges and their destination of greatness.
Welter received an IHSAA Distinguished Media Service Award in 1989-90. The 1963 Knox High School graduate was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. He received the Broadcaster of the Year Award in 2004 from the Indiana Football Coaches Association, which was memorialized in the Congressional Record for the 108th Congress by Indiana representative Steve Buyer. Welter also was inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 2023.
He and his wife, Becky, have four children, Susan, Laura, Cheryl and Nathan – and five grandchildren. Cheryl was killed in an auto accident the night before homecoming during her senior year of high school. In memory of her, Welter and his wife established the Cheryl Lyn Welter Charitable Foundation to help teachers who work with underprivileged children in rural Indiana schools. Welter published a book in 2024, “Joy in the Mourning (Growing Through Grief),” which tells Cheryl’s story and the story of how and why the Foundation was established.
Welter, Rakestraw, Brochin to be honored by coaches' group for contributions to basketball
Three individuals with significant ties to Indiana high school basketball will be recognized with Virgil Sweet Awards from the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association in 2025, it was announced Monday (March 17).
Harold Welter of WKVI Radio in Knox, Greg Rakestraw of the ISC Sports Network in Indianapolis and Mark Brochin of WWBL Radio in Washington are the recipients of this year's awards. One person is honored from each IHSAA district -- Welter in District 1, Rakestraw in District 2 and Brochin in District 3.
Virgil Sweet Awards are presented to those who have provided meritorious service in the promotion of basketball across Indiana. The award is named in honor of Sweet, a former Valparaiso High School basketball coach and executive director of the IBCA from 1974 through 1984. Sweet passed away on June 7, 2023.
This is the 50th year that the IBCA has presented an award or awards for service to basketball beyond coaching. A single winner was named from 1974 through 1979. Multiple winners have been named from 1980 to the present, although no winners were named in 1991 (no clinic was held that year) or 2021 (when the 2020 winners were honored because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
A list of winners from over the years -- plus a bio of Virgil Sweet -- are beneath the biographies of the 2025 winners.
This year's awards will be presented as part of the 2025 IBCA Clinic on April 24-25 at Mt. Vernon High School in Fortville, Ind. For more information about the IBCA, go to in.nhsbca.org.
Here is more information about each Sweet Award honoree for 2025.
Harold Welter
Harold Welter has been best-known as a play-by-play announcer who began covering high school sports in 1965 at WRIN Radio in Rensselaer and continued at WLOI Radio in LaPorte. Over 57 years and in part of six decades, he broadcast more than 3,500 sporting events, traveling more than 250,000 miles to 147 different locations to call games.
Since establishing WKVI Radio in Knox as its first general manager at age 24, Welter has concentrated on covering high school sports at nine area schools – Knox, North Judson, Oregon-Davis, Winamac, West Central, John Glenn, Culver Community, South Central (Union Mills) and Tri-Township (formerly known as LaCrosse). Welter’s radio play-by-play on WKVI has been featured on ABC-TV’s “NightLine” and his signature shout of “unbelievable” when witnessing exciting plays has been a familiar refrain for three generations of players in the Kankakee Valley area.
Welter stepped away from his radio career in 1973 to become a congressional assistant in Washington, D.C. He returned to Knox in 1975 to start Financial Partners of Knox LLC and to return to the airwaves on WKVI. Welter has also covered college sports, but his main focus has been high school sports. He has done play-by-play for basketball, football, baseball, softball, volleyball and wrestling.
He also has hosted the “Saturday Sportsline” coaches’ interview show on WKVI for more than 50 years with guests including six Hall of Fame coaches. He continues to contribute to the Saturday show by interviewing players he has covered with a weekly segment called “Where Are They Now?” He has used radio sportscasting as a positive vehicle for listeners and for promoting young people. He has taught classes for high school-age students at his church and frequently speaks with high school classes about life’s challenges and their destination of greatness.
Welter received an IHSAA Distinguished Media Service Award in 1989-90. The 1963 Knox High School graduate was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994. He received the Broadcaster of the Year Award in 2004 from the Indiana Football Coaches Association, which was memorialized in the Congressional Record for the 108th Congress by Indiana representative Steve Buyer. Welter also was inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame in 2023.
He and his wife, Becky, have four children, Susan, Laura, Cheryl and Nathan – and five grandchildren. Cheryl was killed in an auto accident the night before homecoming during her senior year of high school. In memory of her, Welter and his wife established the Cheryl Lyn Welter Charitable Foundation to help teachers who work with underprivileged children in rural Indiana schools. Welter published a book in 2024, “Joy in the Mourning (Growing Through Grief),” which tells Cheryl’s story and the story of how and why the Foundation was established.
