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

MileHigh described SF_Express as "our compass," and I think that's about right. But we never followed. We ended up lost even when he was around, until we found him or, more often, he found us and pointed us in the right direction. Without him, though, we end up spinning in circles more and more, dizzy but without stability.

Craig Stanke was at a higher plain than most, perhaps any, of us, journalistically. He had accomplished more, done more and been more competent. But SF_Express never minded that. He was the most patient person on this board, considering counterpoints from journalism students and hacks without a chance to make it out of their shitty weeklies the same as I imagine he would at the CBSSports.com office. He never big-timed anyone, easy as it would be. He was happy to agree to disagree but also willing to listen to your point and hope you listened to his.

Who does that? This is an Internet message board, after all. SF_Express didn't seem to understand the rules others played. Toward the end, when so many knew exactly who he was or at least who his employer was, I remember him getting into a few discussions about CBSSports.com's content. Gregg Doyel would tweet something absurd, or Mike Freeman would accuse someone of racism or Joe Paterno would die a day early. And SF_Express came on here and gave us, if not his full thoughts, something more than the company line. He never batted an eye when someone tried to troll him. He was willing to admit a screwup, when he saw one, but also willing to explain why it happened.

I learned a lot from talking about CBSSports.com with him, not as much about journalism as about the work environment. We messaged occasionally, mostly me reaching out to him but occasionally the other way around, and I often would ask him directly about things I saw at CBSSports.com, about the decisions he and his colleagues made in terms of coverage or what he thought of a colleague's column.

He had this great way of letting you know what he thought without undermining his colleagues. I use that a lot now. Stanke knew how to make chicken salad, and SF_Express reflected that in his posts and messages. He was the easiest person on this site to disagree with because he often could make your point better than you. Then he would refute it, and you'd change your opinion anyway.

There's a lot of hostility here these days. I'm not above it, but neither are you. SF_Express was. Go back and try to find the posts where he got angry at another member. They don't exist. He was always on point, always directing us the right way.

 

Roll Tide.

#POY2013.

 

That was nice, Versatile, but even Stanke had his limits. We each did some freelance work online and some of our colleagues there started invitation-only message boards, and finally when things got too nasty about six months before he died, Craig said see ya to that board, as did I right around the same time, I can't remember whether it was a few days before or a few days after. But over the same issue -- we were both defending the bosses who obviously were not there to defend themselves.

We arrived at the same position independently -- luck of the draw, we answered to exactly the same people the whole time, and we had the same experiences with them -- but of course I always felt more sure of myself when Stanke agreed with me. (As I did here, and we didn't agree about everything. In fact, some of our first PMs here were a disagreement, albeit a reasonable and polite one.)

That virtual work environment was the only chance I had to work with Craig, and I envy those who knew him from an office setting because it must have been entertaining as well as educational. I don't know how he found enough hours in a day to do all he did. All I can tell you from our interactions regarding that venue was that Craig had a really good sense of exactly how much he brought to the table, yet was still humble enough to absorb the sometimes asinine rules of that company and try to appreciate the point of view of editors who, he sometimes noted, in the real world would be working for him rather than vice versa. He also sought input from colleagues instead of assuming he had all the answers. At first I thought his queries were some sort of test to discern if I truly knew what I was doing, but when the message boards started, I learned that was just his way.

I knew spnited (Drogo) as a colleague in the office, and for many years longer than I knew Craig, although in some respects I knew Craig a little better and in some respects I knew Ron better. I don't have to tell anyone they were vastly different men, but I'll say now what I said on the anniversary of Drogo's death, that if you knew him only from here and thought he liked you, he probably did. My gut feeling is that he enjoyed this place as much as anyone and would have left years ago if he didn't like and respect a great many of the posters here. Bad as it gets here, we both saw behavior that makes SportsJournalists.com look really good by comparison. He was a lot more tolerant than I am, but he wasn't exactly doing missionary work here either -- he liked this place and respected it enough that he didn't guard his anonymity all that well.

 

Maybe he saw this board for what it is, which certainly is a different atmosphere than an invitation-only board. But I very clearly remember some of his reactions to attacks on CBSSports.com, particularly Mike Freeman and Adam Jacobi, the blogger fired over the Joe Paterno death report.

And no one would accuse you of being anything short of cantankerous, at least as far as classic suits are concerned.

 

This speaks perfectly for me, too.

RIP...

 

If there's an sj heaven, they must have got a hell of a band.

 

Just like Stanke/SF_Express, you mean.

The thing about SF_Express was that, when he posted, he never forgot himself, as others sometimes do.

That air about him naturally provided perspective that added weight to his already knowledgeable and insightful posts and set an example for others to try for without even telling them that's what would happen.

SF_Express was what we could strive for, not because he worked at a big-time outfit like CBSSports.com, but because of everything else about him that you could possibly pick up from a mere anonymous message board.

I'm guessing that that must have been true even more so for those who knew him personally in real life, and I can hardly imagine the sense of loss that Amy and his family have probably felt over this past first year, especially, since Stanke's death.

And it may even have been the reason -- beyond common human decency -- why we may have welcomed and tried to be helpful to you, Amy, in the first days immediately after Craig's death.

But not anymore.

You've become a contributing member of this board and community in your own right and should never think that the way you're treated and, I think, respected here now is simply because of what Craig meant to this site.

In some ways, this is a special place. That's what keeps many of us here well beyond our former careers. But you're now part of it.

 

I have probably read this thread 100 times and will probably read it 5 more today. Amy said it perfectly, as this thread is always one of the places I go when I am doing a lot of thinking.

Thank you guys for this.

- Craig/SF_Express' son.

 

As a tribute, we should each avoid using "respectively" and instead follow the rules of parallelism at least once today.

 

I was thinking that parallelism is a good suggestion.

 

I probably mentioned this last year at this time, but I worked with Craig for 5 years and he was a great boss who taught me a lot. That was a while ago, but every once in a while we'd reconnect via email or messaging about something. And when I visited the CBSSports.com office and he saw me, it was like I had never left.

Him no longer being with us is just as hard to believe now as it was one year ago.

 

As a tribute, I am changing every "prior to" to "before" in every piece of content that comes across my desk.