RIP to one of our own, one of our best -- Craig Stanke

For me, it was the saddest moment in the history of the board by a mile.

It's always sad when someone who you know, like and respect passes, but when it's this sudden, it's worse...

My thoughts and prayers to Amy and his family. I hope they all have a chance to see here and in the other tributes just how beloved Craig was.

 

I know he posts here, and I know he posted here earlier.... But this is Gregg Doyel's post on his blog. Well said, Gregg.

http://www.cbssports.com/general/blog/gregg-doyel/19202910/craig-stanke-teaching-me-even-to-this-day

 

I can't get any work done today, and I didn't even know Craig. But just to know that SF's measured analysis and comments won't be back ... Man, that's a hard one to deal with. SF was such a guiding force without trying to be. How many threads were calmed down or refocused simply by SF stepping in and offering his thoughts?

Everyone needs a great coach in his or her life. SF_Express felt like that to me, in this clubhouse, and I always leaned in for a better look when I saw that he had just added a post to the conversation. I will miss that tremendously, and I wish I could have known Craig Stanke in person.

 

There were several times where I was going on a tirade and he'd PM me something that said, "Take a deep breath." or something like that and it would instantly calm me down largely because I respected him so much...

 

Was just coming here to post that myself, because Gregg's tweet yesterday was when I first read the awful news.

Never put two and two together on "SF_Express" until after Craig started following me on Twitter, then sent a LinkedIn invitation. Thought to myself, now what's a heavy hitter in the industry doing taking an interest in lil' ole me? Two answers come to mind: the first, when I saw some of our connections and realized he must be on here. The numbers added up quickly after that, and I figured out his screen name without having to ask.

The second? Because that's just who he was -- taking an interest, trying to lend a hand wherever he could.

Special thoughts to family, friends, and colleagues, but we've ALL lost one of our best.

 

For someone who got to work alongside Stanke just about every day for the last couple years of his life, this thread has been a godsend, and a compulsive read. The emotion everyone seems to share, from those on the forum who only knew him by his handle, to the people who've known him for decades, is a sense of disbelief over how someone who was so present could be gone.

I felt compelled to write not because I knew Craig the longest or the best, but because he was one of the most interesting people I've ever known. I hung on every word he said, which he must have sensed, because he shared a lot of his personal history with me over the past couple of years since he hired me. Some things I learned about him, in no particular order:

-- As a high school track and cross country runner in Madison, Stanke raced against former Colts and Wake Forest coach Jim Caldwell, and was always quick to note that Caldwell beat him.

-- He covered the John McKay-era Bucs while working in Bradenton and Clearwater, and became close with the Culverhouse family during that period.

-- When Stanke was a staff writer/editor in Beloit in the late 70's/80's he became close for a brief period with Bo Ryan, then an assistant at Wisconsin. Ryan was in town heavily recruiting a player who Stanke was covering, and Ryan and Stanke drank and hung out for weeks. When the player committed to another school, Stanke never heard from or saw Bo Ryan again. When Stanke told me this story recently, he just chuckled at the memory and the naivete of his young self. He still rooted for and supported Bo Ryan though, because that's the kind of guy Stanke was.

-- Craig was a music lover though not a music collector. The last CD he bought was Van Morrison's A Night In San Francisco, because he loved the live version of "Tupelo Honey" he heard on Acoustic Storm.

-- As T.J. Simers and others noted, he was intensely proud of his children. His daughter is a high school teacher and girls' basketball coach. Stanke talked about her team like they were the Celtics, being coached by Red Auerbach. His son had recently graduated college and just taken a career path into sales, which Stanke knew was his son's calling. "I'm pretty sure he's making more money than me," he recently said, beaming.

-- While in Jacksonville, Stanke wrote a Sunday magazine piece which entailed him going on a duck hunting expedition. The expedition was not successful (Stanke didn't get to shoot at anything) but 30 years later he was proud enough of the piece to produce a weathered copy of that paper to show me the next day.

-- I was on the receiving end of a couple of "Well, ya know"s, punctuated by "f*ck you"s, which came as a result of the good-natured barrage of age jokes against Stanke. The more he appreciated your age joke, the more convoluted his setup would be to the 'f*ck you.' My favorite 'f*ck you' setups came when I asked him whether he had witnessed any of Walter Johnson's perfect games, and another time, what paper he was at when the Hindenburg crashed.

-- He was a fierce advocate for and defender of the writers he supervised. Whenever discussing something questionable that a writer had done or written, behind closed doors Stanke would roll his eyes (at us, not the writers) and preempt his forthcoming defense by slowly saying, "Now, I know, you're going to call me a pollyanna, but..."

-- In addition to the fact that he knew everyone and how to do everything in our building, he always knew the fastest way to get just about everywhere. I've yet to find a faster way from the office to the house than the somewhat circuitous way he showed me. And I've never considered going a different way since.

-- Count me as one of those who Stanke believed in when others might not have. He told me after I was hired that it wasn't my resume that got his attention but -- get this -- my cover letter. The formality that most hiring managers breeze by? Stanke not only read it, but assigned meaning to it and gave me a shot because of it. Like many here, I owe him so much.

I could go on and on. I have gone on and on. Stanke was a friend and colleague and mentor and a beautiful guy, and if I feel this way after knowing the man for 20 months, I can't fathom how some of you who've known him for 35 years must be feeling. But I hope this thread keeps going and going.

 

Welllllll let's just say Mr. Moderator I thought that was spam and deleted it. (Yeah, Yeah that's the ticket.)

Another thought on Craig, I really wanted that job not because it would be in Fort Lauderdale but simply because of working for a guy like Craig. It seemed it wouldn't be "work" as much as thorough enjoyment. I told my better half about our conversations and she wanted to work for him and she wasn't in the journalism world.

 

Never met him, didn't know him other than his posts here. Obviously, it's my huge, huge loss. To his family and all of you impacted by this, my sincere condolences.

 

I knew my dad loved what he did, but had no idea he impacted this many people. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts.

 

I really can't add much to all the thoughts expressed here. But they're a great tribute to both the SportsJournalists.com poster and the real person.

I only "knew" Craig Stanke as SF_Express through his posts here, but what always inspired me about him was his obviously rich experience in the newspaper industry combined with his enthusiasm for bringing those old-school values to the new, still-evolving online world.

RIP, and condolences to his family.

 

I didn't know Craig, nor did I ever directly interact with SF_Express. So there's not much I can say. But I can say this: Every time I saw a post written by SF_Express, I read it. Because I could tell he was a guy who had things figured out.

RIP and condolences to his family and friends.