GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - Jerry Schemmel, the radio voice of the Colorado Rockies, will be the featured speaker at this year's Alpine Bank Junior College World Series banquet.
Schemmel was slated to speak in 2020, but the tournament was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. His schedule with the Rockies prevented him from returning last year, but he's arranged to take one game off so he can travel to Grand Junction and talk baseball, and of his experience as a survivor of a 1989 plane crash.
The host of a syndicated radio show, “Amazing Americans,” and the author of the book, “Chosen to Live,” Schemmel was on United Airlines Flight 232, which crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989, killing 112 on board. He was uninjured in the crash and helped others to safety, then went back into the plane to rescue an 11-month-old baby girl.
He'll deliver a message about how his faith has allowed him to move on after the plane crash to the banquet audience.
An avid cyclist, Schemmel has ridden his bike across the United States twice as a fundraiser for Denver area charities. In 2015, he completed the Race Across America as part of a two-man team that covered 3,000 miles in 7½ days, winning the two-person relay division. A documentary on that, “Godspeed,” was release in 2016. Schemmel set his age-group record in the 2017 Race Across Colorado, riding 468 miles from the Utah border to the Kansas border.
He was a broadcaster for the Denver Nuggets for 18 seasons on radio and television, and also calls basketball games for Northern Colorado during the Rockies' offseason.
His baseball background goes back to his youth — Schemmel played college baseball at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, where he got his undergraduate degree in 1982 and his law degree in 1985. He was an assistant coach for the Ichabods for three years, and also was a volunteer coach at Metro State and Colorado Christian in Denver.
“I can relate that experience playing college baseball,” Schemmel said. “A lot of these guys go on and play major college, some of these guys will play at smaller colleges, but I can identify with all that. So the fact that I played, coached, recruited, these type of kids, I think really fits.”
Tickets for the JUCO World Series banquet, which begins at 6 p.m. on May 26 at the Grand Junction Convention Center, are $50 each and go on sale May 1 at the JUCO Office in the Home Loan building, 205 N. 4th St. during regular business hours.
The 65th annual JUCO World Series is May 27-June 3 at Sam Suplizio Field in Grand Junction, Colorado. More information regarding tickets and events will be available soon.