HONOLULU (KHON2) — The state is still mourning the loss of legendary broadcaster Don Robbs, who called UH baseball games for four decades.

Robbs left a broadcasting tree that fruitfully sprouted some of Hawaii’s best, from Robert Kekaula to Bobby Curran and KHON2’s own Howard Dashefsky, to his son, Scott.

The first broadcasting job for the renowned newscaster Dashefsky was doing color commentary alongside Robbs for Rainbow baseball games. The professionalism of Robbs, who turned down Major League opportunities to stay in the islands, gave Rainbow fans a gift and relationship that lasted decades.

“Most college baseball teams, if they even do radio, it’s a campus station and it’s college students which is great,” Dashefsky said. “It’s giving them an opportunity to get their first broadcast experience. To have a guy like this who could have gone on to Major League Baseball for 40 years, it’s pretty incredible. We’re pretty blessed to have someone like Jim Leahy and Don Robbs. We had two legends here.”

Robbs called the 1980 College World Series, in which Dashefsky and the ‘Bows made it to the finals against Arizona, finishing as national runner-up. He would go on to call games for decades before hanging up the microphone for a spot in the stands at Les Murakami Stadium in 2016.

Robbs was inducted into the University of Hawaii Circle of Honor in 2015.

Throughout the years his genuine personality and warm demeanor attracted families of players to become friends with the voice that they heard listening to games on the radio, making a one-way friendship symbiotic.

“His legacy is as someone who not only was just great on the microphone and knew how to tell the story of the game that was unfolding in front of him, but he was somebody that really embraced the players, the community, and just really took it all under his wing and owned it,” Dashefsky said.