The Hummer Retires

There are 144 steps from the field to the press box at Brown Stadium.

There is no elevator. It's a rough walk, probably because it's a very wide expanse on the way up. It's even rougher when you're carrying a laptop or possibly radio equipment - or both. 

There have always been two important staples waiting for visitors once they got to the top: chocolate chip cookies, and Chris Humm, or, as he is known basically to everyone, the Hummer.

The cookies are legendary. So is the Hummer. And now one of them will no longer be there game in and game out.

TigerBlog wasn't all that surprised when he got the email last Friday that said that Hummer was announcing his retirement after 40 years in athletic communications, the last 32 of which have been spent at Brown. At the same time, it was a bit startling to read the words, that the Hummer was hanging it up at the end of the calendar year. 

TB goes way back with the Hummer, back to when he was first covering Princeton sports in the newspaper business. The Hummer has been the football, men's basketball and men's lacrosse contact at Brown since 1988, and so TB worked closely with him for those three seasons for his first eight years at Princeton, when he was also the contact for those sports. 

Since then, they've both been their school's respective men's lacrosse contacts. And TB has seen him at football and men's basketball games as well, most recently when he climbed those 144 steps again last fall for the Princeton-Brown football game in Providence.

The Hummer is one of the last remaining people in athletic communications who remembers the pre-internet days. The, egads, days of mailing things out. Lots and lots of things.

It's a world that most of those who work in college athletic communications never knew. TB can tell you from first-hand experience that it was incumbent on those who wanted to survive the information evolution to change with it, and that's not something that was easy for everyone.

Factor in the endless nights and weekends, and it's not the easiest profession to have chosen.

And yet here he is, retiring in 2020. How would TB best describe the Hummer? 

He's a very, very kind man. He's a very nice man. He's funny, with the same dry, sometimes sarcastic, humor as TB. He's fun to be around. 

He always seems to be upbeat and in a good mood. He never seemed to be taking anything too seriously or getting flustered by anything around him. He's a great family man, with his wife, children and grandchildren of utmost importance to him at all times.

Mostly, he made the trips to Brown a little nicer. And he made them about more than just the games themselves. He made them about going to a game and seeing an old friend.

In his email announcing his retirement, he included some stats about his Brown tenure, which, of course he would. Here are two that speak to the nature of the business and how it can be tough:

* 319 consecutive Brown football games
* 448 consecutive Brown Ivy League men's basketball games

Think about that. Every single one of those games was played on a Friday or Saturday. That's a lot of weekends away.

With the Hummer's retirement, TB moves up to the second spot in longest tenure in Ivy League athletic communications, behind only Yale's Steve Conn. The world that the two of them started out in, with old-school legends like Columbia's Bill Steinman and Dartmouth's Kathy Slattery, doesn't exist anymore.

When TB is on his twice-weekly Zoom calls with his OAC colleagues, something invariably comes up to remind him that he's been doing this for a lot longer than they have. It creates something called institutional memory, and it also creates a nostalgic time from decades ago that he cherishes.

The Hummer has always been a part of that. TB wishes him the best in his retirement. 

Brown athletics, the Ivy League, for that matter, won't be quite the same without having him as a part of it anymore. TB will miss his friend.  

As the Hummer leaves, TB will leave you today with how he ended his retirement email:

I still have my health (I can hit a drive 250 yards - downwind, downhill and hard fairway) and am relatively young (65). I’m supported by a wonderful family, including grandkids, that has put up with me all these years. 

 

Remember to always do the right thing when faced with a tough call. Thanks to all for your help, support and memories. Go Bruno.