What a way to start a career – and without really meaning to. For Don West, his sports broadcasting career basically began over a game of poker.
You see, he and a friend, not long after their 1985 graduation, decided while playing poker to do a next-day mock broadcast of an American Legion baseball game at Springfield’s Meador Park.
Needing the lineup of Ozark’s team, he ran into a broadcaster named Matt Coatney, who asked what West was doing. After requesting the tape, Coatney wrote him three pages of critiques – and asked about his availability.
“Two months later, he needed help with a Western Zone tournament game between Kickapoo and Northeast Kansas City, so he put me on (air),” West said. “It flew from there.”
Did it ever. In February 2020, the kid who grew up playing sports at the local Boys & Girls Clubs will broadcast his 4,000th game. It’s been a remarkable career certainly worthy of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame’s Enshrinement Class of 2020.
A 1985 graduate of Springfield’s Central High School and a 1990 graduate of Missouri State University, West has called games the past 34 years on a variety of TV channels, cable networks, radio stations and websites.
West is in his fourth decade of broadcasting televised games for Mediacom, covering 11 sports. That includes Missouri State Bears and Lady Bears basketball (2004-2010) as well as local high school and college sports and the Springfield Lasers of WorldTeam Tennis (14 years).
From 1987 to 1994, he was the radio broadcaster for the Lady Bears, including their 1992 Final Four team. He also has hosted 500-plus sports-themed TV shows and more than 700 segments of “Mediacom NewsLeaders.” Since 2003, he has co-hosted a nightly show from the PGA Korn Ferry Tour’s Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr Pepper. He also has called 56 Blue & Gold Tournament championship games.
His favorite game? The 1992 Lady Bears’ NCAA Tournament second-round overtime win against Iowa – featuring a tying 3-pointer by Melody Howard – because it fueled the Final Four run.
West has seen far more than 4,000 games, considering he: has long been a statistician of the Blue & Gold Tournament; served 29 years (1986-2014) as an official scorer and public address announcer for Fourth of July Holiday Baseball Tournaments; and spent seven years as a registered MSHSAA basketball official (1989-1996).
He owes his start to Coatney, now the broadcaster of the University of Nebraska women’s basketball program. In 1986, Coatney recommended West to MSU’s Dr. Mary Jo Wynn (MSHOF Legend 2014) to be the Lady Bears’ radio broadcaster.
“He immediately showed an interest in me,” West said. “He believed in me before I believed in myself.”
Sports has long influenced West’s life. He became a regular at the Boys & Girls Club’s Musgrave unit and played basketball and baseball there from third through sixth grade. In 1983, West was named Youth of the Year.
“I didn’t need a ‘father’ figure because I had a solid home life, but it was great to have those leaders at the club,” West said, noting Bill Henderson, Tom Hough, Mike McGuire, Tom Richardson and others. “The mentors I found there genuinely cared about kids. They had great patience. And they were great at organizing games and events.”
At Central High School, West played four years of golf and served as wrestling team manager under coach Bob Kinloch. Then, not long after graduation, he found his calling in broadcasting.
These days, he handles so many games, it’s a wonder that he doesn’t accidentally deliver the wrong storylines of players, coaches and teams. For him, it’s all about prep work. He has kept notes of every high school football game he has done since 2005, and he’s on basketball legal pad No. 44. And those notes are readily accessible.
Additionally, he credits many for making him a better broadcaster, such as basketball coaches Cheryl Burnett (MSHOF Legend 2015), Lynette Robinson (MSHOF 2018), and Jim Middleton, as well as fellow broadcasters Art Hains and Mike McClure.
Even more important, West has the support of his wife, Tammy, and children, Heather and Kyle.
West, a 2019 inductee of the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, now enters the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame – whose 1994 opening he covered.
“I am so blessed to call Springfield home, and I share in this honor with anyone who has every played, coached, officiated, sponsored, watched or listened to any game I have done,” West said. “I cherish you all.”