Bob Hammel, a sportswriter who covered 23 NCAA Final Fours and 29 Indiana high school basketball championships, has died at 88.

I’m at 30,000 feet when I get the update, relayed via text message and Wi-Fi, technological wonders that Bob Hammel could not have imagined when he filed stories from Munich, Maui, or Madison Square Garden: I am not surprised.

Legendary sports editor Bob Hammel passed away Saturday night at 88 years old. Hammel first arrived in Bloomington to study journalism at Indiana University but left after his freshman year in 1954 to pursue an opportunity as a sports reporter for his hometown paper, the Herald-Press in Huntington, Ind.