Longtime Stamford Advocate sports editor Bob Kennedy dies at 77
STAMFORD — If the celebrated story of Stamford sports were a movie, Bob Kennedy would be the narrator.
As a sports reporter, editor and columnist for The Advocate, he chronicled the athletic battles of city players and coaches for 40 years.
Now he is remembered for his love of writing, coaching, Stamford and the family to which he was devoted. Kennedy, who had been hospitalized since March, died Sunday at the age of 77.
His wife of 52 years, Bartan Kennedy, posted news of his death Monday on Facebook:
“Bob passed away peacefully last night after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s,” Bartan Kennedy said. “Our family is so sad but very glad he is finally at peace. Thank you to all for your love, prayers and support over the years. Bob was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and friend.
“We had a wonderful life together.”
Players, coaches and fellow writers said the same Monday.
“Bobby was a community treasure,” said Tom Renner, who worked under Kennedy for 20 years and succeeded him as Advocate sports editor. “He was an encyclopedia of Stamford sports. From the 1950s until the 2000s, he saw the best of Stamford sports.”
That included National Football League Hall of Famer Andy Robustelli; Major League Baseball player and manager Bobby Valentine; National Basketball Association referee Bennett Salvatore; Trinity Catholic basketball star Rashamel Jones, who went on to win a national championship with the UConn Huskies; and Amanda Pape, a Trinity basketball player who was one the highestscoring women in state history, Renner said.
“Bobby knew almost all of them personally,” Renner said. “He was a leader in the community. He embraced that role. You know that saying — if you enjoy your job, you never have to work a day in your life. Nobody epitomized that more than Bobby.”
Kennedy first witnessed Stamford sports successes when he was a boy – in 1951, he watched the city win the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
He worked on Stamford High School's newspaper, The Siren, with classmate and future U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Kennedy was interviewed by the national media when his lifelong friend was named presidential candidate Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. When Lieberman announced he was running for president four years later, Kennedy, along with others from thei Class of 1960, stood beside him on the podium at Stamford High.
Kennedy started his journalism career with The Advocate in December 1964. He was the sole sports reporter on staff at the time and remained so until he left the newspaper for a job in New York in 1970. He returned to The Advocate in 1975 as sports editor, retiring in 2007. He filed stories and columns on Stamford and Fairfield County sports as a special correspondent for a decade after that.
During his career, Kennedy covered New York Yankees great Mickey Mantle, shook hands with boxing legend Muhammad Ali, and traced the career of local hero and friend Bobby Valentine. Kennedy has said Valentine is the greatest athlete he had ever seen on high school baseball and football fields.
Valentine, now executive director of athletics at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said Monday that Kennedy was a “disciple of the patriarchs of Stamford sports” — along with John Scalzi, Mickey Lione, Sharkey Laureno and others.
“After WWII, Stamford was lucky to have guys who settled in the community who gave a darn about the youth,” Valentine said. “They gave the characterbuilding facet of coaching at least as much time as they gave the X’s and O’s. Bobby did the same. He was a coach at heart. He knew those old guys in Stamford had the answer to life. It was the cloth Bobby was made of.”
Kennedy said the same when he left The Advocate in 2007. He told Joseph Pisani, then executive editor of The Advocate, that when he played on successful baseball teams as a youngster, “my coaches were local legends. ... These men not only taught the basics of baseball with the best, but taught the lessons of life, how to win, how to lose and how to do both with dignity and respect for your opponent.”
It was his responsibility to pass that on, Kennedy told Pisani. He coached Little League for 10 years, then Senior Babe Ruth in Stamford for more than 30 years, leading teams to regional and World Series championships.
“Bobby was a legend in Stamford,” Pisani said Monday. “He understood the importance of local sports to a community newspaper and always worked his hardest to give our readers the best section possible, which was evident in the many awards the sports department received over the years under his leadership. But beyond his work as a journalist and his activity in the community, he was a man of integrity and kindness ... and those are qualities they don’t teach you in journalism school.”
Emery Filmer worked with Kennedy at The Advocate for 26 years beginning in 1980. Two things about Kennedy stand out for Filmer.
“First, he was always so calm. He never got ruffled or mad at situations that would have had other editors screaming. I never saw him get mad at anyone and never saw anyone get mad at him,” Filmer said. “The other thing is that a lot of bosses try too hard to be your friend. With Bobby it worked because he really wanted to be your friend. I respected him as my editor, but always knew he was my friend. It helped that we were both total baseball guys.”
Gregg Smyth played for Kennedy on teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the Stamford Babe Ruth team that won the 1991 World Series.
“He was a great man and one of my favorite coaches,” Smyth said. “He was always calm and he knew the game so well. If I was in a bad mood, he could always put a smile on my face. He realized kids were kids and he had a great way of talking to them. As a teenager, I always knew I could talk to Coach Kennedy. Guys like him don’t come along very often. He was a big-time positive influence on me not just in baseball but in my life. Still, if you hear his name you think Stamford sports. He was Stamford sports.”
Mike Walsh coached Babe Ruth with Kennedy for years and was a subject of Kennedy’s writing as head coach of the Trinity Catholic boys basketball team.
“This is a sad day for me losing a friend. We had some great times together coaching, traveling to tournaments and just spending time together,” Walsh said. “He was a calming influence on guys like me and Mickey Lione who could get a little worked up. Bobby was always under control and he really understood the game so well. He always got along with other coaches, parents and he was so great with the kids.”
Bobby Augustyn played on the 1970 Babe Ruth team Kennedy coached as a young man. Augustyn went on to be head coach of Stamford High baseball.
“He was only like 10 years older than me and when he coached us, he always related to the kids so well,” Augustyn said. “He understood what it was like to be a coach and when he covered the teams I coached he was always very fair. He was a very special guy and dedicated his whole life to sports in Stamford.”
In 2019, Kennedy was honored by the Fairfield County Sports Hall of Fame with the Bill Gonillo Media Award. Kennedy was one of the original voters for the Fairfield County Sports Hall of Fame’s Jackie Robinson Professional Wing and continued in that capacity until 2019. The Hall’s J. Walter Kennedy Community Service Wing is named for his father, and he presented the awards on stage each year.
Tom Chiappetta, executive director at Fairfield County Sports Commission, got his start as a sports journalist by submitting stories to Kennedy at The Advocate when he was 13.
“Bobby was always someone I could look to for advice and how to do the job the right way,” Chiappetta said. “Bobby was a historian of all things Stamford sports. Having him there to offer advice and work with was a very important part of me growing up.”
Kennedy was the perfect ambassador for Stamford sports, Chiappetta said.
“The sports editor back then was a prominent position in the city. That sports department brought us so many stories of people in the city,” Chiappetta said. “He had so much knowledge of Stamford and Fairfield County sports. Stamford was an incredible sports town and he was the voice of that.”
When he retired from The Advocate, Kennedy said he had been fortunate to cover athletes decades after writing about their parents. The biggest change he documented, Kennedy said, was the growth of women's sports.
John Breunig, editorial page editor for The Advocate and sister paper Greenwich Time, was sports editor in Greenwich when Kennedy held that position in Stamford. Because Kennedy’s father, the late J. Walter Kennedy, who was elected mayor of Stamford in 1959 and was commissioner of the National Basketball Association from 1963 until 1975, Kennedy knew some of the nation’s sports legends, Breunig said.
“One of the things about Bobby was that he had encounters with icons of the 20th century, but was always humble about it,” Breunig said. “You could probably play a game of ‘Six Degrees of Bob Kennedy’ and trace him to any celebrity. He got an autograph from Cy Young when he was a kid. He got tickets to his first game at Shea Stadium through legendary saloonkeeper Toots Shor, who had hosted everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Frank Sinatra. Bobby knew Howard Cosell, he’d met Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
“But he didn’t talk about these things. Bobby preferred to share stories about his family. They were his favorite lineup.”
Bob and Bartan Kennedy have four children and nine grandchildren. Services had not been scheduled as of Monday evening.
Back when he managed the New York Mets from 1996 to 2002, Valentine would see Kennedy at his business, Bobby V’s Restaurant & Sports Bar, in downtown Stamford.
“Sometimes after games I would drive back to Stamford to go have a beer at the bar and Bobby would be there having just gotten off work at the paper and we would chill out and talk about that night’s game,” Valentine said. “He was a guy I could always talk about the game with. It was as if he had already seen the movie and knew just what to say. He always gave me good advice, calmed me down. He didn’t just write about it, he loved baseball.”
Kennedy kept a smalltown feel for Stamford even as it grew into a big city, Valentine said.
“He was a public servant for Stamford without ever being a public servant,” Valentine said. “He had a true affection, a love for everything Stamford was about.”