Pinch-me moment…Hal McCoy and I check the bucket list with Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Mac Engel (center). (Press Pros Feature Photo)
In Dallas last week, I got to check one of the boxes on my bucket list. Dinner with sports columnist Mac Engel was enlightening, reaffirming…and made the work seem all worthwhile.
If you’re a sports fan, and you’ve never read the work of Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Mac Engel, I suggest you do before you die. Put it on your bucket list.
Because if you want to know – if you read with an open mind – I can’t think of anyone in America currently writing a daily installment at this time who does it better.
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Engel, who grew up in Cincinnati, has been doing it for decades now and is nationally recognized for his sometimes critical perspectives on everything from chess to cheerleading. If it’s out there the 54-year-old Engel is paying attention – always paying attention. And like the recently passed Greg Hoard once told me, “If you see something you write it as you see it…all of it…because someone will know if you don’t.”
That’s my impression of Mac Engel, who like Paul Harvey, delights in challenging readers with the rest of the story – the truth.
In his online bio from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he’s described this way: Mac Engel is an award-winning columnist who has covered sports since the dawn of man; Cowboys, TCU, Stars, Rangers, Mavericks, etc. Olympics. Movies. Concerts. Books. He combines dry wit with 1st-person reporting to complement an annoying personality.
The good ones, like Engel, have always pursued the craft of writing sports in that fashion, and to the disdain of a certain percentage of readers about whom Los Angeles Times legend Jim Murray once wrote, “The humorless are with us, and they always have their soapbox.”
So when a mutual friend offered last weekend to assemble Engel, along with Hal McCoy and myself for dinner in Arlington, Texas, it was one of those moments where you wanted to ask questions…but at the risk of sounding dumb. Like others I’ve met in the past – Bob Hunter (Columbus Dispatch), Paul Daugherty (Cincinnati Enquirer), and Greg Hoard (the first time we met) – you assume they’re something they turn out not to be. They all have a pulse, meaning they weren’t heartless; but they’re masters of creating an audience with the way they do their job.
Because of the public profile of this website, I often encounter people who don’t like its content. It goes with journalistic integrity, and the commitment to write about what you see, one of the prime tenets of journalism.
If you look online, even the award-winning Engel has people who regard his daily column in the Dallas Metroplex as “trash.” An even less enlightened detractor calls him, “a douchebag.”
“Better that someone beats on me than beat on their wife.” – Dick Young, New York Daily News
The late Dick Young, who famously wrote for the New York Daily News, once answered the question of how he handled criticism from readers this way: “Better they beat on me than beat on their wife.”
Young once drew the wrath of his readers for this description of a young outfielder struggling to get started in the major leagues: “If Jesus Christ were to show up in his uniform people would still boo,” wrote Young. “He dropped the cross three times, didn’t he?”
This is the world of Mac Engel, one of the last in America to write about what he sees without fear of consequence. As an example, he recently wrote this about TCU head basketball coach Jaime Dixon
“People take him (Dixon) for granted, think he’s simply awful. In his twisted profession, this is progress. At least they care. It would be great for Dixon, and for TCU, if a few more did care.”
Classic Engel, and a classic example of his appreciation for modern culture – the experienced writer’s way of poking the bull, sending a message. A bit like something I wrote several years ago about the conclusion of a state tournament basketball game.
I wrote, “They won by two and it’s hard to explain why they won, other than hitting a half-court heave at the buzzer before halftime.” People took it as being disparaging – too personal. It was just after I came to know Greg Hoard, who wrote Bobby Knight and Indiana University basketball and the Reds for most of his career. Hoard read the story, and said, “It is what it is.”
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“You grow numb to criticism,” says Engel. “Or at least I have. I’ve adopted this perspective, relative to the way seating is at a sporting event. The players are on the court. The media is on the sideline. And the fans are behind the media where they consume everything that’s in front of them. And if I dole out criticism of a player or coach, then it’s only fair that I deal with the same criticism when a player, a reader, or consumer – whatever – does the same thing to me. It’s OK and I have no problem with it.
“What’s changed is the way people express themselves. When we were growing up there were certain words that weren’t allowed in polite society. Those were the standards. Well now there are no standards for what people are privileged to say, and social media is the platform that gives people courage and access. It’s an evolution, because there was criticism before internet, but the internet has poured gas on it. Face to face people wouldn’t do it, but [face to face] it’s the best way of understanding another person’s perspective. And today, how else do you get someone’s attention if you don’t say or do something that’s hurtful.”
Which is exactly why Dick Young wrote…better for someone to beat on me than their spouse.
Hoard, who died last week at age 73, was one of the best with words I’ve ever read. His story-telling and columns were works of art, but still, he always expected the inevitable.
He’d say, “You can write what 5,000 others saw, and some will still say it didn’t happen.”
Or he would say, “Perception is someone’s reality in the absence of honesty.”
“Perception is someone’s reality in the absence of honesty. The truth deserves a better hearing.” – Greg Hoard
And there came a point where he quit writing altogether in 2021, saying, “The truth deserves a better hearing.”
In the two hours that I spent with Mac Engel I found that he was as good a listener as he was a writer – the truth does deserve a better hearing. I found no sign of his being a “hater,” or “mean,” or negative. He simply asks great questions and makes great points, even in a non-working context. Like Jim Murray, he can state fact that either makes you laugh, or makes you furious.
In 1969 Murray wrote this in a Rose Bowl column about Woody Hayes and the culture of Ohio State football.
“Everyone in Columbus can tell you who plays second-string offensive tackle for the ‘Bucks’. But only a few are certain about who the Secretary of State is.” Murray’s words made him public enemy #1 at Lane and High.
Murray once made this point about the celebrity starter for the Indianapolis 500 race. “He should say, ‘Gentlemen, start your coffins.'”
All fact, and all fun. And still, some are challenged by that.
I typically don’t subscribe to any newspaper online, because there’s so many versions of the same story without subjecting your personal information to theft.
But in Mac Engel’s case, if you like reading sports, it’s the best six months you can get for $1.99. There is NO better version.
Bucket list…checked!
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