By Bill Johnson Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Jul 14, 2007 at 4:51 AM

What do current and former Milwaukee sports reporters like Drew Olson, Rick Braun, Mike Hart, Dave Kallmann, Dan Manoyan, Mary Schmitt-Boyer, Don Burke, Nolan Zavoral, Len Kasper, Ryan Miller, Dave Boehler, Drew Wagner and I all have in common? (I'm sorry if I've missed someone.)

Among others things, we all had the honor of caddying for one of Milwaukee's underrated sports legends: Warren Reid Fansher. Known to all as "Auk," Fansher, who founded the Admirals back in 1970, died after years of health problems on Friday. He was 72.

When Fansher founded the team along with Paul Doud during the winter of 1969-'70, it was an amateur outfit known as the Milwaukee Wings. When Fansher sold the club two years two years later, new owners Bill Chimo and Irwin Merar changed the name to "Admirals" because Merar happened to own a store that sold Admiral appliances.

The Wings name recalled one of many great Auk stories. Through the years, part of his unofficial biography contained the nugget that he was a "former Red Wing farmhand." Many people, including Admirals icon Phil Wittliff, took that to mean that Fansher had spent time playing in Detroit organization.

"It's true," Fansher would say. "I was a farmhand in Red Wing, Minn.."

Fansher served as general manager of the Admirals for a time in the early 1970s, and then hung around as a consultant and confidant. He was referred to as "The Director of Scouting," but his duties ranged from cracking up the coach and general manager to making sure that the post-game beer supply was iced and ready by the end of the third period.

Fansher's reserved seat in the press area at the Bradley Center, which he jokingly referred to as "the coop," sat empty more often than not last season. The years of heart problems had finally caught up to him. In the 30 previous years, there was no more consistent and colorful figure in Admirals hockey than Auk. To sit next to him during at an Admirals game was a treat from beginning to end. You might have to ask other members of the assembled press what actually happened on the ice, but nine times out of 10, the "Auk experience" was more entertaining.

Often, the Auk experience went beyond PG-13, especially if his beloved Ads weren't playing up to his expectations. "Billy, I would send that goat so far away, The Hockey News couldn't find him," he would say of an underperforming player. The years of frustration and mediocre play made 2004 even sweeter, when Auk got to celebrate his team winning the ultimate prize, the Calder Cup Championship. As crusty and irreverent as Auk was, I never he saw him so deeply moved as when he got his championship ring.

When I think of Auk and the people that will miss him, my thoughts turn to his beloved Alice and his children and grandchildren. After that, I think of two other names that have been linked with the Admirals for years: Phil Wittliff and Mike Wojciechowski.

Part of the Auk experience included that phone call that would inevitably come during the game to his press row seat. Depending on the crowd noise, you may have to let Auk know that his phone was ringing. He would give that same playful, disgusted look every time because he knew what the call was. It was Wittliff, the team's general manager, portraying a confused caller trying to order a pizza. Auk and Phil were constant travel companions over the years, criss-crossing the Midwest to watch hockey and share laughs.

Wojo's name would often be invoked if the Admirals were not particularly crisp on the ice that night. The director of scouting would be heard to say "I've been to all three of Wojo's weddings and an eight-man goat (bleep) and I've never seen anything like this." Any story of Toledo, minor league hockey's toughest town, would always include Auk's report on an unfortunate confrontation that Wojo had with a member of the Toledo front office. Wojo kept Auk involved with the team in his later years.

There were others. Don "Scoops" Tanner who kept Auk active with a flood of hockey info from his library of hand-written records. Bob Zanoni and his sons, who served as off- ice officials for years and shared laughs and cocktails with the Director of Scouting. A line of media people who would keep Auk's friends stocked with "Annie Oaklies," which were free tickets, of course.

I can't speak for the other caddies, but sitting next to Auk at Admirals games for four years will go down as one of the great pleasures of my life, professional or otherwise. I should probably have been paying him royalties because there isn't a week that goes by that I don't use something that I first heard from him on the radio. His passion for the game was unmatched, but he also had the perspective to approach it with a sense of humor and candor that was unmatched. Auk taught me that the puck was "le rondelle," the officials were "the three blind mice," and that Tic Tacs and weren't just for freshening your breath.

He will be missed.

Bill Johnson Special to OnMilwaukee.com
Bill Johnson is co-host of "The D-List" on Milwaukee's ESPN Radio 1510 Days / 1290 Nights and the radio play-by-play voice for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's basketball.