Milestone day for Sentinel reporting legend
While live sports are on hiatus, the Orlando Sentinel staff will celebrate major sports milestones that made an impact on the Central Florida community and our readers on this date in history.
We could have tipped off this series by celebrating the date the Florida Gators clinched their second consecutive college basketball national championship.
It was big, but we’re going with something we think made an even bigger impact.
Happy birthday, Bill
Buchalter.
On this date in 1940, Buchalter was born. He would go on to become one of the most influential figures in Central Florida sports.
Buchalter spent 45 years working as a sports journalist, with 40 of them coming at the Orlando Sentinel.
His first major assignment was Florida State’s first victory over Florida at Florida Field in 1967. A Gary Pajcic pass to Ron Sellers sealed the Seminoles’ 21-16 win.
Buchalter covered a lot more of those big games and the Olympics, from Munich in 1972 to Sydney in 2000.
While he had access to iconic Florida college and pro sports moments,
Buchalter was devoted to coverage of high school athletes. Long before Rivals.com and 247Sports.com, Buchalter took recruiting reporting seriously and was the goto source for information about top high school football athletes throughout the Southeast.
He also had a passion for track and field coverage. Long after retirement, he volunteered to help the Florida High School Athletic Association stage the state track and field championships at Showalter Field.
In his farewell Sentinel column published in 2007, Buchalter wrote, “My fear is too many of today’s athletes are not playing for the fun of it but for the pressure of winning a grant-in-aid or a professional opportunity in an industry that, in reality, has precious few jobs.”