A prayer for Van McKenzie

I have been a sports editor for all of three months.
I have some big ideas and some that might be crazy and stupid. Perhaps I will pull off a couple of them.
I hope that when I'm done, I'm remembered 10 percent as fondly as Van.
A great role model for everyone in this business. Work your ass off and don't forget to have some fun.
I spoke with him a couple of times, never really met him or knew him. Thanks to this thread, I feel like I do. Please keep the stories coming.

 

In the more than 4 years I've been a SportsJournalists.com member, I've never printed anything from the board.
That will change.
I've never seen a thread with so many names with "posts: 1" on them.
I really hope as word of this thread spreads we get more classic Van stories.
I'm going to church in about an hour and I'll say a prayer for Van and also thank the Lord that I had the dumb luck of meeting and drinking some beers with him.
He truly was that much fun.
Let's keep his spirit alive.

 

A couple of other Van stories I remembered while reading this great thread:

We were at APSE judging in St. Pete and a couple of Sentinel staffers were having dinner with one of Lauderdale's assistants. Lots of great food and the alcohol and stories flowed. On our way back to the hotel, Van decides we HAVE to stop at the dog track to bet the last race. We all, he decides, need to put in $20 for this last race. We agree, because there really is no point saying no. As we're pulling up to the track we realize we don't have a program and won't know which dogs to bet. No problem, Van says. "Just take the numbers off your odometer." So, that's what we did. As the rest of us sat in the car, Bill Speros ran in with the numbers to bet. While we wait, Van goes on and on about what a great story this is going to be -- us walking into the APSE hotel and telling everyone how we hit it big by betting the numbers off the odometer. So we wait ... and wait ... and wait. Finally Speros comes back. We missed a trifecta by one dog (might even have been a photo finish). We're all disappointed, but Van says, "When we get back to the hotel, tell them all we won anyway. It's a great story." And it is.

At APSE judging in L.A. one year, Van, Lynn Hoppes and I are going to dinner with a couple of other folks. (Van always attracted a crowd like the Pied Piper.) We're driving around looking for a place to eat and all saying we should take advantage of being in L.A. and find someplace special. Van decides we need to head to Beverly Hills because he heard the first P.F. Chang's was there. We're all going WTF? P.F.Changs? That's a chain. We are able to talk him out of that and end up at Lawry's -- an incredible prime rib place. When the waitress comes to take our order, somehow Van convinces her that the reason we're there is to celebrate Hoppes being paroled from prison. The gag goes on all night. At the end, Van says we all have to order dessert -- and different desserts so we can all compare. Hoppes orders poached pears, which sets Van off. "That's what you get in a nursing home," Van says, going on and on about how awful that dessert is going to be. Hoppes says no, it will best dessert out of all of ours. So, when the desserts finally come, Hoppes takes a bite, makes a face and tells Van he was right. Which makes Van roar with laughter.

And finally, as Greg Hardy pointed out earlier, Let it Ride is Van's favorite movie. But many Sentinel folks will remember that Pulp Fiction held a special place in his heart, too. He pointed that out to us one night after work at Chris Rukan's apartment during another memorable gathering.

 

NY Daily News, where Van worked briefly, remembers in Saturday's paper.


New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
A man ahead of his time
BY MICHAEL O'KEEFFE
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Saturday, January 27th, 2007

Van F. McKenzie, associate managing editor for sports at the Orlando Sentinel and an influential journalist whose innovations brought enduring changes to newspaper sports sections, died yesterday at his home in Heathrow, Fla., after a three-year battle with liver cancer. He was 61.
"He loved the rough-and-tumble of newspapers," Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica said of McKenzie, a former Daily News deputy sports editor. "He was only interested in one thing: the best story. And I think he was one of the modern sports editors who completely changed the way sports sections look in our business. If you were lucky enough to know him, and to work for him, you know how much the whole business will miss him."

McKenzie was a legend in sports journalism circles not just because of his editing and layout talents. McKenzie, a regular at horse and dog tracks, played and partied as hard as he worked. In an obituary posted on The Sentinel's Web site yesterday, sports coordinator John Cherwa called McKenzie a journalist by trade and a gambler at heart who "lived his life with the subtlety of a horse being saddled for the first time."

McKenzie worked his employees hard - but most loved every single minute of it. "You never cared how hard you had to work because Van was so much fun," said Daily News sports department office manager Delores Thompson. "He was a joy to be around."

McKenzie's career began in 1963 at the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner, where he became the paper's sports editor at just 17. He went on to lead sports departments at the Sentinel, the Daily News, Cocoa Today (now Florida Today), St. Petersburg Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The National, the now-defunct national sports daily.

McKenzie was an early advocate of using illustrations, caricatures, charts and graphics to enhance newspaper stories, Cherwa told the Daily News yesterday. "He was doing things 10 years ahead of his time," Cherwa said. "He was willing to do anything that drew readers to stories."

Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden agreed: "When you brought him a story, between his editing and his layout genius, he'd turn it into a work of art."

McKenzie was the son of an Ohio miner who moved his family to Florida in search of a better life. McKenzie graduated from high school in Ocala, went to Central Florida Junior College - now Central Florida Community College - and later attended the University of Florida.

McKenzie was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and continued to work while undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, followed by two operations and more chemotherapy. Charlotte (Fla.) Sun-Herald managing editor Buddy Martin, who hired McKenzie at Ocala, Cocoa Today, the St.Petersburg Times and the Daily News, saw his old friend in August, shortly after McKenzie learned his cancer was terminal.

"I said, 'For a couple of small-town guys from Florida, we did okay,'" Martin said. "We reminisced about our ride out of Ocala to places we never dreamed possible. That's the way I want to remember Van."

McKenzie's survivors include his wife, Sandy; two sons, Van Jr. and Von; his mother, Mary; and his brother, Jay. A private family service was planned.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Van F. McKenzie Endowed Scholarship Fund, c/o CFCC Foundation, 3001 SW College Rd., Ocala, Fla., 34474. This scholarship will be used exclusively to help a promising sports writer/editor.

 

any obit that includes a quote from the fantabulous delores thompson is just another reason for van to be hailed. ;D ;D ;D

 

all righty, then, i'll try to weigh in, along with Tim Tucker, from the Atlanta Alumni Chapter.
but before we get to Tales of the Walrus, let's satisfy Van with a few quick charts:

The McKenzie Tree of Sports Editors (a running thread, because i'll miss several, i'm sure)
* Roy Johnson, AME Sports Illustrated
* Larry Starks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
* Rick Jaffe, Los Angeles Times (now Fox)
* Pete Wevurski, formerly of Newark
* Glen Hanigan, his predecessor at AJC (sort of like Ray Perkins after The Bear)
* Terry DamnIForgetHisLastName (Galvin?), Milwaukee
* Jim Smith, now ME in Bradenton, Fla.
* Reid Laymance worked under him at the National, but i'm not sure of his exact title in Bahstahn
* Where do you classify Buddy Martin, who originally hired Van, and Tom Patterson, who i believe worked with Van before Jackson and Denver and whereabouts unknown to me. And other deskers became bosses there and elsewhere.

At The Walrus' Webbed feet
Writers/broadcasters at ESPN who worked for Van along the way:
Chris Mortensen, Ed Werder, Norman Chad, Tom Friend, Peter Pascarelli, Al Morganti, Jemele Hill, Joe Schad and Tony Barnhart (part-time). Likewise Vince Doria and some inside folks.
Lest we forget rival CBS Sportsline, with Dennis Dodd and Ray Ratto (part-time). Or the 30 past and present at SI.

Bonfire of the Van-ities
The staff of the 1983 AJC, then voted by APSE the No. 1 sports paper in America (when they had such rankings), was posed by Van in rented tuxedos, even the women and agate kids. Some of the writers included: Mortensen, Tucker, Ed Hinton, John McGrath, Jack Wilkinson, Tom Stinson, Glenn Sheeley, Gerry Fraley, Furman Bisher, (Dave Kindred came soon after) along with the late Tom McCollister, Jeff Denberg and Prentis Rogers. Not sure if he was pictured, but Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News was a part-time agate clerk back then. (Later, in addition to Kindred and Johnson, he would also hire the likes of Mark Bradley, Bud Shaw, Raad Cawthon and more.)

(to be continued...)

 

One of the most amazing threads in SportsJournalists.com history ... if not THE most amazing.

 

...More McKenzie Memories
* This, after all, was the man who first tried to make Beano Cook a writer, at St. Pete. Lord help him.
* This, after all, was the man who blended two competing staffs, the Journal and the Constitution, into one, 52-person department that within a year or so was voted America's best. Now that's a rebuilding job.
* Van wanted a story about the antics of little league baseball players. He related the tale of his own son, Vannie i believe, who could no longer contain himself amid a long inning in left field. So, as Wilkinson eloquently wrote, protecting the identity of the boss' son, something like: "...the young outfielder made a relief appearance at the left-field fence." It made for an outstanding takeout.
* Van wanted to send a writer on a Sunday to Albany, Ga., to get the story behind the death the day before of an Auburn fullback, who collapsed and died of heat exhaustion on the first of fall drills, in 100-degree heat. Lo and behold, the 21-year-old new kid got sent deep into southern Georgia, where he was sure folks hadn't seen a Jewish Yankee before, or at least not in 120 years. A call to the minister, a knock at the door of the small house with the tin roof, and the Atlanta writer was summoned into the kitchen -- where he waited for hours because the fullback's family wanted to talk, but needed first to compose themselves. It was me, Pat Dye, and nothing but grieving family and friends, and they graciously provided the stranger with an amazing tale for the next day's Journal: the young man lived in fear of the sprints that ultimately killed him.
Smartly, they sent Wilkinson to cover the funeral, where he found a grave-digger who spoke of hastily rearranging the burial for some reason -- into the open instead of under a huge, shady oak tree as originally scheduled. Wilkinson wrote: "Even in death, Greg Pratt couldn't escape the sun."
* Van wanted to relieve Hinton of his longtime auto-racing chores. Who else would he pick? The Jewish Yankee kid who couldn't change the oil on his own Subaru, but here he was at interviewing Richard Petty about carburator sizes. (i left soon after... though i have this great keepsake photo of me exiting the "passenger's side" window of Ricky Rudd's car after a ride around Charlotte Motor Speedway, wearing courdoroys, sweater, glasses and thumb's-up pose but never looking more Jewish in my life, not even at my bar mitzvah.)
* Van somehow called (in the days before caller ID or cell phones) the Georgia press box an hour after a game: "We got this really good picture of an injured player for the Bulldogs. . . Terry Hoage? Can you write your sidebar around it?" Funny you should ask, because the team's best player and Rhodes scholar getting hurt against lowly Temple was, in fact, my sidebar.
* Van wanted Dave Kindred. And he got him. To celebrate, he rounded up anybody in the office who wanted free beer (duh) and took us to a bar next door in the Omni. The party was dubbed Kindred Spirits.
* Van had a bad back that so pained him, he would take to lying on the floor to stretch it out. He would do it at the copy desk, after sitting at a tube for a spell. He would do it in his office, where, amazingly, this bear of a man completely disappeared behind his desk and boxes of resumes and papers. I once brought my future wife into the AJC, at his request, for a covert interview. We went to his office, for I was told he indeed was in there, and -- knowing the drill -- introduced the seemingly empty desk to Miss Cindi Lash. "Nice to meet you," the empty desk replied. My wife still equates the voice of God to those booming words resonating from nowhere. (Interesting aside: Because of nepotism rules, Van made me hide and avoid Cindi while she went off to interview with city editor Jimmy Stewart, now CBS' White House correspondent who covers, of course, the emptiest desk in America.)
* Reading a 70-plus-inch Eddie Robinson feature that Wilkinson got and wrote, on deadline, when the desk was likely expecting 20 or 30 inches for a Friday Grambling-in-Atlanta game feature. That was the AJC in the 1980s: If it was a tale worth telling, dammit, we were all in. (And Van would complain that our 16-page weekday section just wasn't enough space.)
* Driving Van to John McGrath's going away party at Manuel's Tavern. . . . How the brewing industry recovered from that night, we'll never know.
* Corresponding with Van post-National, when he was a moviehouse owner in Florida. He whined, "I'll never find another newspaper that will pay me what I want and give me the resources I need." Funny thing, never lasted but a couple of years, and his neverland was just down I-4. Orlando treated him the best, too.
i've usurped enough space, so i'll stop there.
but there are, among many others, some stories about Van becoming the king of Calgary at the 1988 Winter Olympics; hopefully, a member of that Cox team will recall them for the crowd. . .

-30-, Walrus

 

You know what hasn't been mentioned directly on here, only kind of sideways (in that he was good with all facets of the business, Buddy Martin's "five tool player).

Van HATED being known as a "design guy," as I recall it. He took pride -- not ego, just rightful professional pride -- in being interested in all facets of putting out the best section possible.

It's obvious from this thread that that was the case.

 

Delores Thompson rules.

 

Likewise Buddy Martin, a mentor of mine in many ways, and whose name is not mentioned around here nearly enough. Sorry to see him here under these circumstances, but a sharp reminder to keep in touch with those who have meant a lot to us over the years.

 

A couple of thoughts from a sports journalist who knew of Van only by reputation but now feels inspired to do more after absorbing the wonderful insight produced on these pages..

-- Could there be some sort of assemblage in Miami this week during the Super Bowl run-up for those who want to pay tribute to him and learn from those whose lives he impacted so deeply?

-- And for everyone else, could those who know him best assemble some of the great work he was associated with over the years and post it somewhere (a web page perhaps?) where we could all get a sense of his vision?