Jerry Bretag

Class of 1950 Jerry Bretag began his career as a sportswriter and statistician while still at Ottawa Township High School as a student working on the school newspaper, Buc the Bookworm, and as a part-time sports writer for the Daily Republican Times in Ottawa. Jerry Bretag then attended Western Illinois University, graduating with a degree in journalism. After graduation he began working for the DeKalb Chronicle, progressing to Sports Editor, before moving on to the Quad City Times where he spent 25 years as Sports Editor, with the final 5 years there as Executive Sports Editor. In addition to winning awards while at the paper, he served as the official statistician for the Mississippi Valley Conference, and later the Quad Cities Conference. After retiring in 1984, in part as a result of his life-long health challenges with spina bifida which prevented him from being able to play the sports he had chronicled for so many years, Jerry Bretag embarked on a monumental effort for the Illinois High School Association. He has been singularly instrumental in chronicling extracurricular accomplishments through the IHSA database of sports records. To date, nearly all of the 90,000 plus records listed have involved Jerry Bretag’s efforts. His efforts have continued with the establishment of separate records for each of the various classes in five different sports.