WQOW TV: Eau Claire, WI NEWS18 News, Weather, and SportsMike Sullivan & Ron Buckli: EC Media Veterans

Eau Claire (WQOW) -- Mike Sullivan and Ron Buckli have covered high school sports in Eau Claire for a combined 93 years.

Ron Buckli and Mike Sullivan can each remember their first day on the job.  For Sullivan, it was January 12, 1974.   Buckli began his career on July 1, 1956.  Now, they can't imagine doing anything else.

"We are so privileged to be able to do something that's fun," says Sullivan, sports director and senior account executive at WBIZ radio, "and get paid actual money for it."

Buckli, a sports writer at the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram says, "It's been a fun ride, you know, I enjoy it, otherwise I wouldn't be here, I enjoy high school sports most of all."

He's also had an opportunity to cover several generations of high school athletes.

"The sons and daughters of guys I played with, grew up with, I got to cover them, and covered their kids, and probably into great-grandkids now," says Buckli.

Even though both guys have covered pro and college sports extensively, the high school games are still special.

"They're representing us, they're representing our community, they're from here," Sullivan says, "from a family perspective, and from a professional perspective, I love Eau Claire, and I still do, because it's not so small that you don't get any media coverage, and it's not big enough that the local stuff doesn't get buried."

Both Mike Sullivan and Ron Buckli say high school kids now aren't that much different now than how they were decades ago...even though technology has drastically changed the way the two long-time journalists cover high school sports.

"Computers," says Buckli, "I grew up on a typewriter, and it took me a while to catch on to the computers."

Sullivan says, "I'm all thumbs when it comes to texting, but boy, it's exciting to get the North girls basketball buzzer-beater win at the same time I'm covering the hockey team in La Crosse, getting their win."

Buckli no longer holds the title of sports editor, but he's still a larger-than-life figure in the Leader-Telegram offices...even if he doesn't think of himself that way.

"I walk into the office and I think I'm number five," says  Buckli, "and if I need help I yell and they help me out, and they're all great, and it's just fun to work with them."

So how much longer do Mike Sullivan and Ron Buckli plan to keep working?  They say, as long as they can.

"It's a passion," says Buckli, "I enjoy doing it, I'm not coming in here for the benefit of the newspaper or anything in particular, I'm coming in because I enjoy it."

Sullivan says, "It gets tougher as you get older, there's no question it's tougher when you're the age I am now, as opposed to when I was in my 20's, but I still enjoy it, so I'm not ready to hang it up yet."