Charles N. "Chuck" Hildebrand

Charles Nathan “Chuck” Hildebrand, a sports journalist and author whose career spanned more than 40 years, three states, five books and thousands of bylines, died May 30, 2022 in Greendale, Wisconsin. He was 65. Mr. Hildebrand was born in 1957, in Mountain View, Calif., to Lamar Hildebrand and Gladys Ann Goldstein. He spent most of his childhood in the San Jose area, which in the 1960s and 1970s routinely produced world-class athletes in every sport. Mr. Hildebrand demonstrated a knack for reporting and writing at an early age. From the time he was 12, he was determined to cover and chronicle these athletes and their accomplishments, and achieved his first newspaper byline - atop a story on future baseball Most Valuable Player Ken Caminiti - when he was 15. Through his early newspaper work, he became associated with Campbell Little League in Campbell, a suburb of San Jose. Mr. Hildebrand joined the league as a paid announcer, scorekeeper and announcer in 1974, and Campbell teams won national championships in Little League (1976 and 1979) and in Pony League (1978 and 1979) while he was there. Later, Mr. Hildebrand coached at various levels in the Campbell system, and in 1982 re-formed the city's American Legion program, which went 44-15 during the two seasons he ran the team. Mr. Hildebrand coached 25 players who went on to the college ranks, along with several who played professionally. While he was involved with Campbell baseball, Mr. Hildebrand graduated from Del Mar High School in San Jose in 1975, and then attended San Jose State University for four years, serving as the sports editor of the Spartan Daily, the SJSU student newspaper, in 1978 and 1979. During the summer of 1979, the Peninsula Times Tribune, a Palo Alto based daily newspaper for which Mr. Hildebrand had free-lanced during his time in college, hired him as its high school sports director. He later covered every major sports beat for the Times Tribune, including Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and NCAA football, baseball and basketball. He covered all three of the Bay Area's seminal sports events of the 1980s: The San Francisco 49ers' 28-27 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on "The Catch" by Dwight Clark in the NFC title game in 1982; the University of California's 1982 football win over Stanford in one of the most controversial finishes in American sports history; and the Loma Prieta earthquake before Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. Mr. Hildebrand also was in the press box at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 1988 when Kirk Gibson hit his game-winning home run in Game 1 or the World Series. Mr. Hildebrand left the Times Tribune in July 1992, less than a year before the paper permanently shut down, and worked for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and Associated Press for five years before moving to Nevada in 1997. He was also a high school classroom teacher and baseball coach during that time. In 1998, Mr. Hildebrand, sensing the need for a statewide publication to cover high school sports in Nevada, formed Nevada Prep. a weekly newspaper that circulated throughout the state. A year later, he became one of the first journalists to operate a legitimate news medium on the Internet, launching NevadaPrep.com and operating it out of his home in Winnemucca, Nev. The website was a resounding financial and artistic success, and was widely copied by many of the newspapers whose editors had previously scoffed at the idea of the Internet replacing the newspaper as the medium of news choice. In 2008, after running the website for 10 years, Mr. Hildebrand sold NevadaPrep.com and returned to California to begin work on his second book, on former Santa Clara University basketball coach Dick Davey. (His first of five books, Bronco Sundays, had been published in 1998, at the same time Hildebrand was completing his move to Nevada. It was a history of Santa Clara's football program, which was widely known as the Notre Dame of the West through the 1930s and 1940s.) Mr. Hildebrand followed the Davey book with The Last Baseball Town, on the Campbell youth baseball dynasty of his youth, and Hey, I Was At That Game!, on his major league, minor league and amateur baseball travels from 1965-91. While still living in California, Mr. Hildebrand, a Milwaukee Brewers fan since the 1980s, made several visits to Milwaukee, and was captivated by the city's charm and the friendliness of its people. He purchased a home in Milwaukee in 2012 and moved there permanently three years later. In 2016, he published his fifth book, Sad Riddance, about the 1965 Milwaukee Braves during that franchise's final year before its move to Atlanta. After moving to Milwaukee, Mr. Hildebrand became a staunch supporter of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's baseball program, believing that UWM, as the only NCAA Division I program in Wisconsin, was ready to become nationally prominent, especially after moving into its new ballpark for the 2020 season. Mr. Hildebrand also was a member of the Guardian Society of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, and served two terms as a board member of the Mitchell Gallery of Flight at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. He was a longtime member of the Milwaukee Athletic Club. Mr. Hildebrand is survived by a half-brother, James Hildebrand of Tucson, Ariz., his uncle Howard Goldstein of Saratoga, Calif., and various cousins, nephews and nieces. He also remained in close touch with many of his former players and students from his Campbell, Stanford and Nevada years, along with athletes he covered as a journalist. Mr. Hildebrand always described his coaching work with young people, particularly athletes, in this way: "I always had three goals for each of the teams with which I was associated. First, I wanted our last game to be our best one, no matter where we were in the standings. Second, I wanted every player to be better at the end of the season than he had been at the start. Third, and most important, I don't want to be anyone's last coach. I didn't want anyone to turn away from baseball because he had a bad experience with me." During the last months of his life, Chuck was at peace surrounded by his beloved friend Karyn Birmingham, who adored him to the end. Dear friends like Sean, Jack, Jim, Chris, Scott and Bill also remained loyally and lovingly beside him as he made his journey home. Thanks and gratitude to the many caretakers from Aurora at Home Hospice, Synergy Healthcare and Therapy at Home for the tireless dedication to assisting Chuck during this time. A brilliant, kind, loving soul, Chuck made friends easily. He was quick with interesting and amazing facts about sports, history, politics and music. Additionally, he always added a little flavor to conversations with his quick quips and funny remarks. Generosity and kindness were among his many gifts, always caring for those in need with no expectation of anything in return. When thanked for his generosity, he would often say, “It’s the least I can do, and I always do the least I can do”. Truly one of a kind, Chuck will be remembered and loved by many, not marked by how he died but rather by how he lived. In lieu of flowers, donations to youth-oriented organizations and complexes in California, Nevada and Wisconsin are preferred. Friends will gather for a Celebration of Chuck’s life on Friday, June 17, 2022 at ROZGA FUNERAL & CREMATION SERVICES – ROZGA-WALLOCH CHAPEL (4309 S. 20th St, Milwaukee, WI 53221) from 4:00 - 6:00 PM. Private inurnment will take place at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee, WI.