William Gutman, an award-winning sports producer for WMAQ-Ch. 5, left broadcasting a decade ago to fulfill what family members said was a lifetime desire to teach.
Mr. Gutman taught broadcast journalism as well as history and American government at Oswego East High School, where dozens of students paid tribute to him on Facebook, remembering their former teacher as a man with “a smile that was hard to get off his face.”
“Teaching was his dream, and he was thrilled that he could bring his passion, the world of broadcast journalism and TV, to his students,” said his brother, Tom.
Mr. Gutman, 58, who joined the faculty at Oswego East in 2005, died Thursday, Dec. 13, at his Evanston home. He had battled metastatic colon cancer for five years.
The former Naperville resident stepped down from teaching in May because of his health, his family said.
Mr. Gutman was adviser for the school’s Broadcasting Club, helping students produce the daily “Wolfpack News.”
“I don’t think we ever really appreciated how much Mr. Gutman sacrificed to make our broadcasts flawless,” said former student Omer Rehman, a 2011 graduate of Oswego East. “He put in countless hours writing and editing, even when he was in the hospital.”
Born and raised in Highland Park, Mr. Gutman was a 1972 graduate of Deerfield High School and received a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1976 from American University in Washington.
As a college intern, Mr. Gutman worked at the NBC News Washington Bureau, and later as a TV news producer at stations in Green Bay and Kansas City, Mo. He got his start in sports working as an assignment editor at ESPN before returning to Chicago in 1982 as a sports producer at WMAQ, where he remained for 15 years.
Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of sports, Mr. Gutman received an Emmy Award for producing the half-hour sports special “NBC Sports Sunday” in 1986 and two Peter Lisagor Awards for achievement in local sports journalism. He also taught broadcast journalism at Colombia College in Chicago in the late 1990s.
“Bill was a great newsman who had a real good feel for putting stories together,” said former colleague Steve Corman, who produced the 6 p.m. news at Channel 5 before leaving the station to serve as director of broadcast journalism at Columbia College. “But judging from all the student evaluations I read about him while at Columbia, he was an equally fine teacher. The kids really loved him.”
In the early 2000s, Mr. Gutman worked as a news writer for Fox News Broadcasting until enrolling at National Louis University and receiving a master’s degree in education. He completed his student teaching at Lake Forest High School and then began teaching at Oswego East.
“He died a teacher, a job he always dreamed of, was so proud of and truly loved,” said his nephew, Adam.
Mr. Gutman is also survived by his father, Clark “Jim” Gutman.
Services have been held.
