A gathering of the McEwen Clan, sort of

Posted Mar 5, 2010 by Tom McEwen

Updated Mar 8, 2010 at 03:22 PM

It was, I think, Brett McMurphy’s idea, to assemble as many who could make it and were still around to our back porch on Davis Islands, a scenic place where John Madden once asked with incredulity, “You mean a sportswriter lives jere?”. Madden asked it of Bob Costas when they visited me at a Super Bowl function years ago. It is a nice place and we are proud of it. Realtor Ken Lightfoot found it for us over forty years ago.

The recent function was quite sudden and the idea of former Tribune beat writer McMurphy and non-sportswriter Frank Campisi, who thinks he is a sportswriter but is in the tomato business and made a lot of money there (which he would not have made in the sportswriting business). The guys came because they represented some of my best hires during my times at the Tribune, many of whom are still there.

The crowd of writers and analysts came to my home for lunch over Phil Alessi Cubans and an assortment of baked sweets to catch up on each other. The crowd included those who have filled your Tribune Sports section for years of reports and interpretations. They included McMurphy, Mick Elliott, Martin Fennelly, David Whitley, Joey Johnston, Ira Kaufman, Pat Yasinskas, David Alfonso, Bill Fay, Roy Cummings, Chris Harry and Campisi. There was no program except for those who chose to say they appreciated their Tribune years during our time there and, of course, we told them we did it well and we were successful.

It was, during their time, the heyday of newspapering and a great growth period for the industry. People read, people wanted to read and we obliged. A true veteran of those years, Jim Selman, could not attend, but he is doing well in retirement, as is Bob Austin in his new field of acting in theater. Austin and Selman were the among the sportswriters who were around when I joined the staff and are hereabouts today.

As always in such assemblies, David Whitley is a lead subject. I told the staff it was the only time in my years at the Tribune I had to make a public apology when Whitley, tongue in cheek, wrote a report on the opening of the Frank Sargeant Outdoors Show at the State Fairgrounds. He spoofed it. I understood his humor, but few others did since he made fun of fishing, plugs, reels, rods and the entire idea of such a show.

I got a call the morning the column appeared from Tribune publisher Jack Butcher. I knee-jerked as clearly Butcher did and said I would take care of it. I wrote a piece placating outdoors folks, for I was one of them - as are more people in Florida than most other states. What Whitley wrote was simply David Whitley taking a poke at a sports staple. We got rid of the problem, and nothing further developed. Sales about outdoors did not subside. It is entirely possible that those who may have objected had stopped reading after the Whitley piece.

The Outdoors Show has been a sensation through the years, for it answers the need of so many of us who boat or fish or participate in water sports, and Sargeant blossomed into one of Florida’s premier outdoor authors. I hired him when he was fishing on Lake Wales in central Florida. He was a cherished Tribune tradition, as was Herb Allen before him.

Martin Fennelly is among the nation’s top writers of sports and is an insightful observer. He is a humorist in a field where not too many are. The truth is Fennelly loves what he does in part because he does it so well. He likes to get that chuckle out of you or favorable grunt. One reason is he is a good-natured man and he likes to laugh more than gripe, as so many in my business have wanted to do.

So there they were, the dozen writers who worked with me and supplied you with the news you wanted to know and will continue to do so. They are a good lot, carefully chosen.

Like the late Tom Ford, who walked into my office without any experience at all and wanted a job. He became good at what he did and could cover anything. He also was a bit of a rarity for after I hired him, about a week later, I came in and he was sitting in his desk with a pretty girl in his lap. He was teaching her to write, he said.

He would do things like that, and he could cover anything in sports well and fast, like the 24 Hours of Sebring, like the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500, and a University of Tampa football game that ended at midnight. But he had the story into the newsroom 10 minutes after the game was over on time. He died young, sadly, Tom Ford did.

We miss Ford and the daily routine of work - easy, fun, difficult, on deadline and not. All those who sat around my table that day were a vital part of the Tampa Tribune Sports department and the successes it has had over these years. I want to thank them today and those who preceded them in this presentation of Tribune Sports. We tried with so much enthusiasm to give to the readers out there the fulfillment that sports can provide. I was proud to be a sort of founding father these past years and grateful so many fine men in my business chose to join me and pursue their careers.

Babaloo.