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All Hail Mike Kreffel, alias "Kref"

trover

Hall of Famer
Gold Member
Feb 8, 2002
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He died today of an infection, after doing battle with cancer and winning. Mike was a great friend to me and to the OTF. He was a talented writer and cartoonist, some of his work appearing in Playboy during Playboy Magazine's zenith years, when every male teen (except Cap, of course) stashed the magazine under his mattress.

He left a son, Eric and a daughter, Julie, of whom he was very proud.

Kref will be missed.
 
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Oh my GOD! WOW! What a loss.

I spoke to Kref several times on the phone over the years. This is a big loss.

What horrible news.

Some of you might remember Kref created some of the original coach candidate buttons we've had over the years.

Mike, you will be missed. RIP, brother.
 
Back in 2005 Mike came up with a few OTF logo designs...

...we were thinking about using for an off-shoot OTF multimedia venture that never really took off. Below are a few of the logo ideas he came up with. I believe a vote was taken here for the best of these and #7 came out with the most votes.

Wow. Very sad news today.

otflogo1ar6.jpg
 
Very Sad News

Never got to meet Kref in person, but we had some memorable late night exchanges on the forum. As a matter of fact as I was looking through the OTF pictures page today, I saw his and wondered where he had been lately. Very sad news indeed. Thoughts and prayers to his son and daughter.
 
I too looked at those pictures today and thought the same thing....

we had our "disagreements" from time to time but he was always a nice guy when it came down to it on here!

Prayers to his family.

Thanks for bringing this news to us, trover!
 
Kref has been missed for a while . . .

the OTF hasn't been fully the same without his take on things for some time now.

And now the loss is permanent. Sad day, for all of us . . . .

Kreffie, we hardly knew ye.
 
Wow. Much respect to Kref and his family.

Terrible news for us, hopefully he's in a much better place. RIP
 
I am very sad. I heart me some Kref, and he was nice enough to make me

some of my own personal buttons the past year. I salute him with these:

mail

voteforcapfd2.jpg
 
Wow, am I sorry to hear that.

I never met Kref, but felt I knew him a bit from e-mails we had exchanged and some of the threads we had participated in here. We were going to take a continuing ed class together through IUPUI last Spring, but he said he had "too much going on at the time". I wonder if that had to do with his illness.

Very sad. Thanks for letting us know.

RIP Kref. I salute you, my friend.
 
Sad day....

...I can't say that I knew Kref as well as what many of you could say, but it's never good to lose someone that young...especially after winning a battle against cancer. Tough loss...

Rest in Peace
 
As I look back on those coach candidate buttons......

....I think Kref came up with many of the original designs. And he might have been the one that came up with the idea on the OTF. Not 100% sure about that though.

Link to the button thread - if you want to look back.
 
Oh wow..

I've missed Kref on here and now he won't be coming back. Thoughts and prayers for his family.
 
Really sad to hear that.

He helped me out quite a few times in the past.

Rock on, Kref.
 
He will be missed

I'm sure he'd have preferred to take a few knucklheads from around here with him....
 
I'll miss his great sense of humor.

RIP Kref, and thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.
 
Kref was one of the people I met through Indiana forums . .

that I considered a friend. Really good guy. Sad day.

Happy trails Kref.
 
RIP, Kref

Can't say I knew him all that well, but I will always remember his sense of humor and miss his presence on the board. God bless.
 
Kref made quite an impression on me...

in my early days on the OTF, Kref was kind enough to give me his phone number so I could speak to him about animating. at the time, I was an amateur 3d animator, and was looking for some advice. several hours later, Kref was still patiently answering questions and sharing stories and wisdom.

I will always remember him for that, and thank him for his generosity.

A Thiarna saor ar leitheid
 
Re: Wow, am I sorry to hear that.

Hi this is Julie, his daughter. Last spring was a bad time for him. As far as we know he was not yet ill but was taking care of my grandfather who he had living with him at the time. To say the least, my grandfather took a lot of my dad's time and energy not to mention a lot of patience. Thank you for your post. I'm loving hearing about the kind things everyone has to say about him. I've never met a person who didn't like him. Ever.
 
Damn, that sucks, he did some really funny stuff.

May God bless him and watch over his loved ones.
 
That really, really sucks.

First, it seemed like Kref was a good guy.

Second, I was hoping that IUT would be the first geriatric peegster to take the Long Nap in December.

Regards.
 
Thank you Julie, and you and your family are in my prayers.

Your Dad and I were going to take a class, given by Donald Davidson, on the history of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. I've taken it many times before, but he had not and I was really looking forward to having him along last April. Now that you mention your grandfather, I think that's the reason your dad gave for skipping it. He said "maybe next year". He'll be there, I'm sure.

God bless. Everyone enjoyed your dad. Most of us never met him in person, but he was liked and respected tremendously.
 
Re: Thank you Julie, and you and your family are in my prayers.

This is a post I made of some memories of my dad, requested by another forum user. I hope it gives a little bit of what he was like and how much of a difference his love of the game made in my life.

I don't remember my first IU basketball game because I believe it occurred before my first memories came to form. He loved IU basketball so much and my brother and I grew up bleeding cream and crimson. I remember lots of times at Assembly Hall, for so many years he would take us to the games. Even though he sometimes couldn't afford expensive seats, we didn't care. Just being there was good enough. One of my favorite memories is the '87 game where we all sat around and watched it on TV on the edge, waiting to see what would happen at the end shot.

And although my dad was one of the most patient people in the world, I do remember a few times a remote whizzing past my head as some ref made a bad call or a player on the opposing team committed some horrendous foul that got no call. There was also a time when, driving back from a game at AH that he got pulled over for speeding. I will never forget the horrible words that came out of his mouth (or the horrid look on his face as he realized he had just said them OUT LOUD)but I look back and laugh at that night. I'm not sure what his hurry was but I can only guess he had taped the game we had just watched and he wanted to watch it again...

Over the years, through all the things that happened with the program, he touted many times that he was going to scale back on his devotion to the game. But I'm not sure that ever really happened. I will say that after Coach Knight left my dad did lose some of the passion for it but only just a hair (no more remotes flying across the room). After I moved into my own place, we still had many late night phone conversations about the comings and goings of the team. The most recent one being about the new coach and our new hope for the program. I only hope it lives up to his expectations and he is watching it all transpire from a higher place.

So, thanks to you all for being there with him over the years. I know he will be missed by so many others than just our family.

Julie
 
Mike was perhaps my best friend I've met via the forums.

I first met Mike on the old Starnews forum. Back then, it was just about 8-10 posters (Native, Historian, DougS, myself, and a few I forget). This was back in 1995, before Gojko, before the Loopers, and before the IIBF.

Over the years, Mike and I got together several times, whether it was an IU game, for dinner on Veteran's Day, etc.

He was a great guy that experienced more than his own share of bad breaks. The thing that set Mike apart was his ability to be there for his friends when they experienced their own bad luck.

Mike, I'm a better guy for having known you.

Rest in peace.
 
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