Goodbye to an old friend and other tidbits
The last few months have been tough on all of us.
Right around now the rent is due, entertainment and sports are dead and the response of our leaders to the coronavirus pandemic has sent unemployment soaring and put businesses on the verge of bankruptcy.
If you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones.
Sportswriter, columnist and sports editor Terry Larimer, whose copy read like that novel you cannot put down, passed Tuesday at age 74.
Of all the sports types I’ve worked with since covering the Eagles in 1992, no one was more professional, helpful or kinder than Larimer, who spent 41 years at the Allentown Morning Call.
Larimer was so good he didn’t have to tweet it or post it on Facebook or drop it in social media bios with the awards he’d won. He didn’t have to tell you the opinions were his, and not his employer’s. He owned what he wrote, and what he wrote you wanted to own.
Larimer’s pieces came at you like those movies you watch 10 times. Each read revealed another component masterfully worked into the story.
Larimer was born near Pittsburgh but he wrote stories about the Eagles with an edge and a passion us Delco types can relate to.
If you have someone in the family who wants to be a real journo and they ask you how to write a story, tell them, to Google Terry Larimer. Heck, Google him if you want to read something well-written. Among other examples, this one tells you how to craft a real story.
Larimer didn’t write that headline. But he took the heat for it and had the back of the character who did. It was the story of his life.
•••
Sorry, bros, but this is colleague day for me.
Bob Ford, the decorated Delaware County Daily Times columnist who upgraded the lineup at the Philadelphia Inquirer, stepped down from his job with the Philly affiliate, leaving behind at least one story, and probably a heck of a lot more with each and every reporter he spoke with.
With so much time on his hands now, look for a book to come out in the next year or so on something.
No one was funnier than Ford – or had a funnier laugh – when the Delco Times sports staff got together. He was part of the radical changeover from broadsheet to tabloid in 1981, the one splashed all over billboards as “The Dime Times.”
When Ford left the
Times, I got a chance to see what he was like on Sixers road trips. Same selfless guy.
My favorite Ford story has Charles Barkley in it. It was the 1991-92 season and Barkley wanted to be traded.
Ford and I were at a hotel in Texas with a basketball court about 30 stories up. The Sixers just happened to be staying there and the trade deadline was coming up that evening.
Barkley bumped into us while we were having lunch, right after a workout and I don’t remember how it started, just that he thought we sucked so bad at basketball he could beat us playing 1-on-2 in his street clothes. We took him up on that, and a long elevator ride and a lot of laughs later, we step onto the court and begin the game.
Ford doesn’t remember the scoring, but I’m almost certain we were leading 7-1 in a game to 11, win by 2. Our game plan was beyond reproach – the guy with the ball drew Barkley away from the basket and passed it to the guy under the basket for the cherry picker bucket.
Barkley also was launching 30-footers in Manolo Blahnik dress shoes on a court that was maybe 30-feet long.
Anyway, when Barkley got wind of the score and told us we didn’t suck as much as he thought we did, he went on a 10-0 run with dunks, postups. bombs and reverse layups off blocked shots and steals that left Ford and myself laughing so hard we were almost in tears.
Barkley later would claim the Sixers traded him to the Lakers but rescinded the deal. He played that night in the game.
Now, after all these years I can tell you it was hilarious watching Barkley post-up Ford. And I was kind of sore all over writing the game story that evening.
Best, Ford.
•••
The NFL schedule for the 2020 season is slated to be released Thursday at
7:30 p.m.
You can watch the pomp and circumstance with a myriad of coaches and personalities on the NFL Network.
Uncertain of the coronavirus, the league already has eliminated the international games.
Right now, it looks like the league will post the standard schedule with the season starting Sept. 10 and mostly Sunday, Monday and Thursday games.
The worst-kept secret is one of the contingency plans is to begin the season in October, add four games to the end of the schedule and complete the playoffs and Super Bowl in late February.
If there isn’t a college season as we’ve known it, there could be more Saturday games.