Related: Clisby’s last NCAA Tournament (2019) | Cliz’s Battle (2018)
Larry Clisby lost his nearly three year battle with lung cancer passing away early Saturday morning in Florida at the age of 74.
Clisby’s health had continued to deteriorate since attending Purdue’s opening season contests at the Space Coast Challenge in late November. Matt Painter, members of the men’s basketball staff and some of Clisby’s radio colleagues, had planned a trip to see Clisby Saturday morning.
Everybody who knew Larry Clisby has stories to share. And my guess is right about now, many more will be shared. Here are some of my recollections of Clisby, since edited from the time I first wrote them on his birthday this past Sunday (Feb. 21): .
In Cliz’s final days, I had the good fortune of exchanging texts with Clisby’s wife Michelle. She had served as Cliz’s public relations director in his final stage of his life. That, of course, in addition to being present in so many ways for Clisby as he navigated his battle with cancer.
She wanted me to communicate how much her husband had enjoyed, and was humbled by, all the communications from Purdue folks and the love that had been sent his way in his final days.
I have had the pleasure of knowing Clisby for most of the 44 years years he had been around the Purdue program and the Lafayette area. To be clear, I was far from being in his inner circle. We stayed in frequent touch, with our best talk times usually relegated to twice-a-year three hour breakfasts at Christos in West Lafayette.
Still, I vividly recall his Boilermaker beginnings. Clisby came to the Lafayette area from Paducah, Kentucky, full of a big voice and an ambition to be part of big-time college sports. I remember when former Boilermaker play-by-play man Henry Rosenthal hired Clisby to do high school sports and work as Henry’s sidekick on WASK’s Purdue sports broadcasts.
If I am not mistaken, when Purdue gravitated to using a sports radio network with Host Communications prior to the 1982-83 season, Clisby was the lead football announcer and color analyst for Kevin Calabro in men’s hoops. Clisby didn’t start doing basketball play-by-play until the next season when he worked with color analyst Lanny Sigo,. After Sigo, it was Steve Reid, then Mike Wild, then Rob Blackman and Ralph Taylor that sat in the analysts’ chair.
So I have known Clisby for a long time is my point.
When I worked in the athletic department, we had fun together on the few basketball road trips I was fortunate to be part. In a trip to Ann Arbor in 1988, I recall Clisby being in tears after signing off the broadcast because Purdue had just beaten Michigan en route to a Big Ten title. It had been hard on The Cliz (and the entire Boilermaker fan base) when the year before the Wolverines basically ruined Purdue’s season by embarrassing Keady’s conference co-champs by 30 in the regular season finale in that same venue. That is when I fully realized how much this meant to him.
Yet, it wasn’t the victory that mattered the most to him. Sure it mattered, but it was the fact that HIS team and HIS basketball family no longer had egg on its face.
There were many more lighter times. I recall the first time I ever saw a cell phone being used, Cliz was talking on it while we were traversing the Golden Gate Bridge. Man, we had a blast during that trip to the Bay Area, made better by Woody Austin’s last-second game-winning shot at the old Harmon Gym at Cal-Berkeley. Clisby was fun to be around, though I admit I am glad it was before social media and cameras on every phone.
A few years later, our paths crossed again when he worked with me during my first year at Gold and Black (1996). He sold advertising for us and helped where he could. Later, he advertised his fledgling cigar business with us as Clisby always took on new projects with enthusiasm and optimism. He had the advantage of knowing everybody and everybody knew him. And that usually was a good thing.
I witnessed some of Clisby’s ups and his downs, though mostly from a distance. Among the many things I learned to appreciate about Clisby is that he has never presented himself as close to being perfect. He is self-admitted to being one of the most flawed people the world has produced. But I aways respected his willingness to share his warts, and his insight to why they were there in the first place. In conversation, I always felt he was putting me in a position to learn from his experiences.
The Cliz I knew wasn’t religious, but he can discuss religion and philosophy with the best of them.
The Ciiz I knew wasn’t political, but he has a very informed opinion about politics and its place in society.
The Cliz I knew loved sports and especially Purdue men’s basketball, but that wasn’t, especially in the final evaluation, what defined him.
I usually departed our breakfast conversations realizing we didn’t talk about the specifics of Purdue basketball at all.
Our conversations proved more enlightening to me because they often centered around why the program functioned as it did, from a 30,000-foot view. He never spoke out of school and kept confidences that I am sure were shared with him by Painter, Gene Keady, Elliot Bloom, Nate Barrett and others.
Clisby always made me think, and often think differently. And that is something that I will always consider his greatest gift to me, even if he wasn’t cognizant he was sending a gift.
In recent years, I remember Cliz visiting our office that we still rent from WLFI-TV 18. Cliz had a long career at the station and even an ex-wife Susan worked there. When we saw him coming up the sidewalk to enter the office, we knew nothing was going to get done for the next hour or so. He would sit down and hold court…sometimes about Purdue sports and often about the topic of the day. It took time, but it usually brought laughter and always was a welcome break.
I learned from being around him that it is extremely foolish not to give someone a second chance. The Cliz needed a second chance at times, and sometimes a third and fourth. Yet, he was grateful that he was given another opportunity, and usually made the most of it.’
He was one of the more self-aware people I have ever known, a description he spent his life cultivating. Nothing was easy for Clisby during his time on Earth, and it hasn’t always been easy for the people around him.
But for me, I have taken so much more from my relationship from Clisby than he gave to me. And I am just one of the many, many people Clisby can call friend in the 74 years and six days he lived. I consider myself very fortunate to have had the experience.
We will miss you Larry Clisby. So will all my colleagues at Gold and Black.
Rest in peace.
