Of the thousands upon thousands of statistics that Buck Jerzy has recorded, the number 50 stands out.

This past fall marked the half-century anniversary of him keeping statistics for television and radio broadcasters of professional and college football games.

Statisticians like Jerzy are rarely acknowledged on air for supplying on-the-spot, play-by-play information, but the service they provide is vital, enabling announcers to describe without a hitch what’s happening on the gridiron below.

Year One, Game One of Jerzy’s career came in the summer of 1965 when the Detroit Lions played the Washington Redskins in the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.

The late, legendary Van Patrick was the announcer then for CBS Sports and the Lions. He and Jerzy struck up a relationship that kept the two paired when, in 1968, Patrick landed the job of announcing Notre Dame football for Mutual Radio.

Football weekends for the next six years were hectic. “We’d do Notre Dame football on Saturdays, the Lions on Sundays and then Monday Night Football. I was getting $750 for each game, but had to pay my own expenses,” Jerzy recalls.

When Patrick died in 1974, Jerzy remained with Mutual Radio for Notre Dame games and a different pro game every Sunday.

Jerzy’s first Notre Dame broadcast was a Fighting Irish victory over Oklahoma. He’s kept the stats for Irish football for 47 years in a row, at home and away. While the network stopped covering his travel expenses eight years ago, he still does home games, but only road contests near enough to drive to.

“My prize possession,” he says, pulling it out of his pocket, “is a championship ring presented to me when the Irish won the national title in 1988.”

In 2004, Jerzy was recognized as the top statistician in college football by the All-American Football Foundation.

Jerzy was born 79 years ago and reared in Hamtramck. He was baptized Jerome, but he’s known by his nickname, acquired from his fondness for buckwheat cereal as a youngster. He was an altar boy at St. Florian Church and attended Hamtramck High, where he was starting end on offense and defense.

He tried out for the Michigan State football team, but lasted all of three days. “I was a walk-on and a carry-off,” he quips. He volunteered for the U. S. Army after his freshman year and returned to MSU two years later to get a degree in communication arts.

His resume is a lengthy listing of the myriad jobs, clubs and organizations with which Jerzy has been associated. He started out in sports PR for Clarkson College in upstate New York, then the same position at Wayne State University, and then Ford Motor Company in employee communications.

He’s been a property and casualty insurance agent for about four decades. In his retirement, he’s on call as a substitute high school teacher for six area school districts.

Jerzy wrote sports for The Detroit News, did publicity for the Hazel Park Harness Raceway and for boxing events at Cobo Arena. He was executive director of the Michigan Bowling Proprietors Association. He is a lifetime honorary member of the Detroit Sports Broadcasters Association.

In 1989-91, he was chairman of the National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame. (Full disclosure: I held the same post for three years preceding him.) He was secretary of the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

An avid boater, Jerzy was commodore of the Downtown Yacht Club and former director of the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle.

He adds: “I’m a good Catholic boy, too.” His two sons and two daughters graduated from Royal Oak Shrine, and he and his wife, Paula, are active members of Holy Cross (Hungarian) Church in the southwest/Delray part of Detroit.

“You know, I think I should write a book,” Jerzy says. He’d have no lack of material to draw upon.

---

Don Horkey may be reached at [email protected].