Adam Harper was the angriest young man I ever hired. Or ever worked with. And probably the weirdest, too, though he has a lot more competition for that title. Rage simmered below the surface of his personality at all times and percolated to the surface frequently … usually directed at the great amorphous (yet eternally […]

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Nick Leyva rarely failed to amuse me. He was an agitator. A teaser, A pot-stirrer and a trash-talker. And that’s good, 99 percent of the time. You don’t want a newroom or a section that takes itself too seriously, and Nick Leyva — at least, the young one we knew — made sure we didn’t.

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James Curran was the ultimate Sun sports department prodigy. He showed up pretty much fully formed, as a writer, at the age of 16. He could report, keep statistics and file on deadline when he walked in the door. When he was barely old enough to drive. He had spent some time at a weekly […]

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How valuable was Cindy Robinson to a sports section? Well, I hired her five times, if that gives you any indication. Yes. Five. In violation of Gannett corporate policy at least a couple of times. (You get two bites of the apple in Gannett, unless you get special dispensation.) As far as I was concerned? […]

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It was a spasm of good fortune. For the newspaper, the section and for Mike Terry. It was the spring/summer of 1987. Bob Ritter was editor of The Sun. He called me into his office one afternoon and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Would I like to add Mike Terry to the sports […]

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David Bristow wasn’t meant to be a sports journalist. He is too smart. Too interested in real-world topics. He was meant to make news, not report on it. But for 3-4 years there, he did more than dabble in sports journalism, and we all had a splendid time. David may be as fondly remembered by […]

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Dan Hawkins was as bright as anyone I ever worked with. As witty and amusing, too. A guy ready to laugh, someone who was conversant in a myriad of subjects and expert in more than a few. He was the resident NASA expert, even when he was working in sports, and when the space shuttle […]

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Anyone who has run a sports department knows the importance of clerks. Better to lose a beat writer than your ace agate clerk. Who may be all of 19 years old. You can put out a section with a wire baseball story. You can find a dozen competent people eager to cover baseball. But you […]

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Confession up front: Spike Speigner was gone from The Sun newsroom several years before 1984. Probably no later than 1981. Maybe even late 1980. But Spike Speigner popped into my head the other day, and I believe he warrants mention in my series on people I worked with. Even if he’s a little out of […]

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Some of us fell into print journalism. Some of us discovered it fairly late. Some of us knew we were destined for newspapers. Early and with absolute certainty. That was/is Vic West. I never pinned him down on this, but I bet he knew — KNEW — he was going to be a sports journalist […]

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