RIP Chris Dufresne

Longtime West Coast writer Chris Dufresne has died, per a radio guy in Fresno, Calif. Dufresne worked at the L.A. Times for more than three decades, mostly covering college sports. Was working for his own outfit as of 2015.

Never knew him personally but followed his work from afar. No cause of death yet. RIP.

 

R.I.P. And this lede on a story he wrote a few weeks ago is haunting:

"It hit me this week that I may never attend or cover another sporting event in my lifetime.

"A bit dramatic there, Grantland Rice?

"Maybe."

Taking One For The Team

 

Well, hell. RIP to the LAT college football writer this Vol fanboi loved to spar with on twitter.

 

A must read for college football fans. Man the LA Times had a great line-up back in the day.

 

A really good writer and reporter. I used his stuff a lot off the wire.

It was always good. It was never filler. ... RIP, man. Sad news today.

 

OMG. This is such sad news. Our careers pretty much lined up. We knew each other, but not really well because I was a beat guy and he was a national writer, so we were looking for different things. We had the same first name, which was funny the few times I messaged with him. I am a few years older (another distressing thought to me).

When he was purged by the L.A. Times, he was one I missed the most. I did subscribe to his blog effort -- TMG Sports -- just so I could read his college football stuff. The other three guys -- Blaudschun, Barnhart and Gould -- I had no use for. His wife was their webmaster and also their accountant. A few months ago, I messaged that I did not intend to renew my subscription the next time it expired because Duf was their best asset and he wasn't writing enough to justify the expense. She messaged back that Maven/SI had taken over the subscriptions. When TMG was absorbed by Maven/SI, it got worse and Duf barely wrote at all, mostly because of the lack of college football.

Duf has earned legendary status in L.A. sports journalism. RIP, one Chris to another.

 

This one hurts.

Those who know me know that I almost never go out the night before a game because I always want to try and be at my best come kickoff. But a couple of years ago at the national championship in San Jose I got off the bus for the media party and the first thing I heard was Tony Barnhart say "There's the man we want to see." He introduced me to Chris and his wife, and Blaudschun, and they wanted to pick my brain about their website and joining Maven.

We parked ourselves at a table, talked shop for a while and then started swapping stories. Mostly I did a lot of listening. Just about every veteran big-name writer who walked through the door made a point to stop by and say hello to them, and many jumped into the conversation for a while.

I had a blast. Kid-in-a-candy-story kind of night.

They ended up taking off just before the party was closed down, and when I got back to the media hotel ran into them in the media room. We kept going. At some point, either that night or the next, Chris gave me a good idea for a series that we did on the site last year.

Easily my favorite time as a sports writer in years.

Special night. Special guy. He's going to be missed, big-time.

 

Peace to his family, friends and colleagues.

Whatever he had it seemed like he was taking every precaution.

 

When I first met Chris years ago, what immediately struck me was how grounded he was for someone so talented and accomplished. Dude was already a legend but didn’t carry himself that way. I’ll always remember that. In an industry not short on shitheads, Chris was a really good human being and a great family man. He’ll be missed.

 

Really enjoyed his work in the old Athlon College Football annuals of the 1980's. Snark but smart snark.