O’Gorman’s passion for Mercer County sports was infectious
By any estimate, I knew George O’Gorman during the tail end of his career. My tenure with The Trentonian finished in the summer of 2013, just years before health issues forced George to leave the paper on a fulltime basis.
Even so, he had more energy and passion for Mercer County sports than I could ever claim to have for anything. Nobody cared about an area more than George. When I arrived in 2007, The Trentonian had a billboard near Perry Street that showed magnifying glass over a bird’s nest with the caption “We cover every square inch.”
Even after that billboard came down, and the size of the paper shrank and the deadlines were moved up, George lived by that motto. There was no story too small, no player too obscure, no obstacle too strong to keep him from squeezing the most out of Mercer County every single night.
Even if it meant finding four inches in print for a couple of paragraphs about a local track meet that ended 30 minutes before deadline, George insisted that the staffers on the desk make room somewhere in the section.
In reading the tributes to George over the last day or so, he covered even more than I knew, which was already more than I thought possible than by any single human. He could cover multiple events simultaneously, and sometimes as many as five games across multiple sports in a single day.
While I was there, he managed to cover the New York Giants, high school football, high school girls soccer, high school track, the Trenton Thunder and absolutely anything else that popped up during the year.
He didn’t take days off. He didn’t take vacations. He didn’t even let a fire at his house stop him from covering multiple events in a day. “What am I gonna do, put it out?” I seem to remember him saying at the time, to the bewilderment and awe of everyone else in the building.
Over time, that undying passion spread throughout the office through a sort of osmosis. Call it Oge’mosis. No matter the name, the phenomenon was real. From the greenest copy editor to the most veteran writer, George made sure you understood that local sports mattered.
Even in his absence, that message will always be remembered by anyone who has ever read his stories, listened to him speak or heard about him through The Trentonian’s long, distinguished group of alumni.
George O’Gorman was the king of Mercer County. Long live the king.