The news will record that outstanding broadcaster Clinton Grybas died today aged 32. What it will not be able to record is the quality of person that Clinton was, the outstanding man, and friend to those who knew him.

As a common friend of ours said today after hearing the news of his passing, it didn’t matter if you hadn’t seen Clinton or spoken to him for a few months, the next time you saw him was as if you had never been apart. He was always happy to see you.

I count myself lucky to have known Clinton since before he was ‘famous’. Many football supporters may not be aware that he actually got his start on the road to success in basketball.

My first dealings with him came in 1994, when he was still a student and I was working for the now defunct North Melbourne Giants in the National Basketball League. He wrote seeking some information for an assignment, however in hindsight what he was seeking was information for a career path he had long before set out for himself.

Our first meeting came a year later when he did work experience at the National Basketball League. Not surprisingly to those that would get to know and love him, he fitted in there as if he had been on the full time staff for a decade. I vividly recall Brendan McClements, the then NBL head of communications and now CEO for Victorian Major Events Corporation telling me that Clinton would go far in whichever area of sport he chose. Clinton was 19 at the time but I couldn’t help but agree.

Over the years we would grow into a friendship that was among my most valued. I can say without any fear of contradiction that Clinton was the same person in terms of his ego, self importance and how he carried himself at age of 19 as he was at the time of his death. Perhaps there is no greater compliment that I could pay him.

We spent a lot of time together at NBL games, and he maintained a passion for basketball long after he had become a star AFL broadcaster. Sometimes we would go to a game, just to watch, and he would be so enthused that after the match that he would call through to the 3AW newsroom to lay down a grab for their 10pm news service!

The passion that people saw on TV and heard on radio was genuine. If you were out at dinner the debates over just about any sport topic would rage long into the evening.

Even after he had made it as a star of TV and radio, Clinton continued to run a local basketball competition in Warrandyte – the Greythorne Cup. Not only was he commissioner of the league, he also refereed the games. When a player would complain of a bad call, Clinton would tell them to put it in writing the commissioner!

We spent a lot of time together – at basketball games, seeing in the new year at the Hopman Cup tennis in Perth where he was working as a commentator and host of the annual new year’s eve ball, through the Sydney and Athens Olympic Games and most importantly at my wedding.

Clinton loved so many sports. Not just footy and basketball, but the NFL – he went to the Superbowl in Miami last year – to sports he had not previously had much to do with. Calling Olympic and Commonwealth Games meant he had to get to know different sports. His call of the diving at the Manchester Commonwealth Games had long been a source of good natured ribbing. He ranked calling the women’s water polo gold medal match at the Sydney Olympics where Australia scored the winning goal in the last five seconds, as one of his biggest thrills in broadcasting.

When I got my job at Geelong Football Club it meant that he and I would again be dealing with each other in our professional roles. He loved to work…he barely had a day off and he genuinely loved what he had to do. He never went through the motions. If he was going to do something he did it properly, professionally and with a passion.

We didn’t always agree, in fact in our respective jobs, with our respective responsibilities there would probably have been something wrong had we always agreed! But he was a person that you could always talk things through with.

He never saw himself as bigger than the game, even when he was one of the most recognisable faces in football.

Over the 13 years that I knew Clinton, I can not recall him being in a bad mood. Honestly. It was as if everyday was a great day.

Some people collect stamps, some collect coins. Clinton collected people! Through his time as a teenager covering the eastern District Football League, to his time working as communications manager at the South East Melbourne Magic, to the ABC, to Perth, to 3AW and Foxtel…I guarantee you that all of those lucky enough to come across him will have had their lives touched in some way – big or small – by him.

In closing on this sad day, I would like to pass on my deepest sympathy to Clinton’s family and to his partner Laurenna. I just feel lucky that I could count Clinton as a friend.

Kevin Diggerson is the general manager of media & public relations for the Geelong Football Club and has been a friend of Clinton Grybas for over a decade.