Here's Kornheiser's obit:
OF ALL the things that deck Schaap loved -- and he loved sports, and he loved newspapers and television and radio and theater and politics and laughter; he loved good women and bad men, and large dinners with friends; he loved the written word and the spoken word; he loved his work and worked all the time, even when he was playing; he loved famous people and infamous people,
and if you had a piece of gossip or a funny line to tell him he loved you, too -- but of all the things deck Schaap loved, most of all he loved being deck Schaap.
And he was great at it.
Schaap, who died yesterday of complications following hip surgery, won three sports Emmy Awards for his work on ESPN and three more Emmys for features on ABC's "20/20" and ABC's "World News Tonight," where he worked for 20 years. He was 67.
deck was the happiest, most generous, most optimistic man I ever knew. He never had a down day. On any night you could have dinner and drinks with deck - - rich and full with hope and laughs -- and great stories that would last into the wee, small hours of the morning, and you'd have to leave for fear of falling asleep at the table. Then you'd awaken bleary-eyed the next morning to find deck had already played two sets of tennis, written three chapters of a book and interviewed a movie star and a batting champion!
All of deck's friends are having trouble dealing with the news that he died yesterday. Because none of us can imagine him not working.
"I never met anyone who lived every minute of every day as much as deck did, " Joe Valerio, the producer of "Sports Reporters," said as we comforted each other. Each Sunday for the past 13 years deck sat on that set and hosted the best sports show on television. "Sports Reporters" is thoughtful, funny, argumentative and literate -- many of deck's better qualities. Ask Mike Lupica,
Bob Ryan, Mitch Albom or Michael Wilbon (and that's a full orchestra of egos),
and they will all tell you it was Schaap who made the show work, even when he barely said a word. For years Lupica has said, "I've got the best seat in television, right next to deck Schaap."
deck was the first sportswriter to make the jump successfully to television,
and what made his television work sound so good was his great writing touch. He had the whole package. deck could write (he was a columnist at the New York Herald Tribune); he could edit (deck was city editor at The Trib, and later editor of Sport magazine); he was smart and glib, so speaking on camera was no problem. deck was a great interviewer.
This summer I was at a dinner deck was emceeing. I was sitting next to Dave Anderson of the New York Times, now the dean of American sportswriters. Dave was a dear friend of deck's, and I was saying how I thought deck leaving newspapers for TV had opened the door for so many sportswriters to earn a living in ways we'd never imagined, and how I was in his debt.
I said something to the effect that the best thing was that deck was always a journalist, regardless of the medium he worked in. Dave, who's one of only four sportswriters to win the Pulitzer Prize, smiled and said, "deck's the best of us. He's the most versatile talent. He can do anything, and do it better than anybody else."
deck Schaap was my great friend, and my mentor. I'm in this business because of him as much as anyone. He gave me freelance work when I was 22 years old; he gave me encouragement at 22, 32, 42 and still at 52. He was a sweet and funny man who had the gift of gab, and the greater gift of putting everyone around him at ease.
The last time I saw deck was in late August at his beloved alma mater, Cornell. deck is in the sports Hall of Fame there -- he'd tell you it was more for his sportswriting at the Cornell Daily Sun than his skill as Cornell's lacrosse goalie. deck loved Ithaca, N.Y., so much that a couple of years ago he bought a house up there, and converted its old horse barn into an office.
We drove to his house for a barbecue with deck's wife Trish, their daughter Carrie, a sophomore at Cornell, their 16-year-old son David and some friends of Trish's. deck took me through his office. It was like being in a sports museum. There were 50 years of memorabilia perched on shelves and walls; autographed balls, ticket stubs, book jackets, signed photographs. Mays, Mantle, DiMaggio, Ali, Namath.
I don't think I'd ever seen deck this happy -- and he was the happiest guy I ever knew.
