Former sports editor known for wit
George K. Strode, whose four decades in sports journalism included a 15-year run as sports editor of The Dispatch, died Wednesday in Columbus after a brief illness. He was 81.
Strode served as The Dispatch’s sports editor from 1985 until his retirement in 1999. Before that, he had spent 16 years as Ohio sports editor of The Associated Press and six years as a sports reporter for The Columbus Citizen-Journal.
He is survived by his loving wife and inseparable companion of 43 years, Ruth, and a host of former friends and colleagues.
“The Dispatch needed to hire a sports editor in 1985, and the obvious choice was George Strode,” former Dispatch editor Luke Feck said. “The paper was lucky to have such a knowledgeable, witty raconteur who knew Ohio sports inside and out.”
In his time at the newspaper, Strode directed a sports department that dramatically increased in size and coverage. He did so with an affable nature and quick wit.
“He was always cool under pressure and had a great sense of humor,” said Michael F. Curtin, former associate publisher of The Dispatch. “He had a calm, uncomplaining understanding that the newspaper’s sports audience is an always-demanding,neversatisfied lot.”
A native of the Athens County village of Amesville, Strode graduated from Wilbur Wright High School in Dayton in 1953 and from Ohio University in 1958.
He worked for the Zanesville TimesRecorder, Athens Messenger and Dayton Daily News before his hiring at the CitizenJournal in 1963.
Strode would spend the next 37 years working for three companies based in the six-story building at 34 S. 3rd St. that served as The Dispatch’s headquarters. The Citizen-Journal (1963-69) operated out of the mezzanine, and The Associated Press (1969-85) had its bureau on the fourth floor. The Dispatch editorial offices were on the fifth floor.
“I finally made it to the top floor,” Strode used to say.
Strode came to The Dispatch after a successful run at The Associated Press, for which he covered the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and Pan-American Games in Puerto Rico and Venezuela.
He won writing awards for stories about drug use by Pan-Am athletes and for uncovering an FBI probe into race fixing at thoroughbred tracks. He also wrote extensively about Ohio State sports and spent a decade covering legendary football coach Woody Hayes.
“He was a terrific newsman who didn’t balk at reporting uncomfortable subjects,” former Dispatch sports columnist Bob Hunter said. “But I never heard any of the people he covered or wrote about say a bad word about him.”
Among his colleagues, Strode was a constant source of entertainment for a language and cache of euphemisms that were uniquely his. Money was something that was lost or misplaced was said to have and the big boss was known as
He also routinely assigned nicknames to co-workers, often using alliteration based on the person’s home: Hilliard Hank, Westerville Wally, etc.
Strode, too, had a nickname: Smoke. Its origin he always refused to reveal. Some posited that it involved a long-ago bar, a cigarette lighter and someone’s hair, perhaps his. Others believed that the name was a product of his tendency to silently disappear when his workday was done.
Strode's affable ways served him well outside the office, too.
“Aside from the fact that he seemed to be smiling all the time, the thing that impressed me about George was that, wherever we went, it seemed as though he knew everyone, from big shots to waitresses,” said Kirk Arnott, a former assistant managing editor at The Dispatch.
Added current assistant sports editor Scott Davis, “George was a congenial person who seemingly could relate to anyone. If he ever had bad days, he didn’t show it.”