On our 16th anniversary, we take time to remind you of the exceptional people who’ve made this trip, and left before we got to nowhere in particular. But what a standard they set for those who’ve followed.
August marks the 16th anniversary of Press Pros Magazine (August 10, 2010), and while we’re pleased to still be here and have so many of you with us…we also mourn the loss of so many of the original cast of Press Pros writers that have gone to be with their eternal editor.
It’s cliche’, of course, to say that we could not have done it without them, but, in fact, we could not have done it without them.
Of the original five – Hal McCoy, Chick Ludwig, Dale Meggas, Jim Morris, and yours truly – Chick is still working for WLW radio, in Cincinnati, and Hal still anchors our University of Dayton basketball coverage.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and Ohio State baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
But college friend and roommate Dale Meggas passed away suddenly in 2015, taking with him his caustic qualities for writing about his hometown or Cleveland, its potholes, its unpredictable weather in July, and the misadventures of the Browns. He once told me that he attended the 1964 NFL title game between the Browns and the Colts, and while he sat in the upper deck of old Municipal Stadium, he kept a minute-to-minute diary of his observations because he was sure he was witnessing something that he would never see again. He wrote for years that the Browns would never win again, lacking the influence of a true football mentality at the top – a man like Paul Brown.
“Art Model was never again going to hire someone like Brown, who knew more about business, and knew more about football, because Modell viewed him as a threat,” wrote Meggas in an early column, who lost his standing after years with the Cleveland media for his criticism of Modell.
“When Modell fired Brown in 1963 he eliminated any and all competition in the front office, and replaced him with Blanton Collier, who was a nice guy and a competent coach, but one who wouldn’t question Modell. The Browns won the championship a year later with a team that Paul Brown had built around fullback Jim Brown. Modell viewed it as his crowning achievement, never again uttering the name of Paul Brown.”
And true to his prophecy, the Browns have never again won a championship…or even made it to the Super Bowl.
Jim Morris was the sports editor for years in Troy at the Troy Daily News before leaving the TDN to become the outdoors writer for the Dayton Daily News in 1994. ‘Big Mo’ was widely loved for his fishing reports of area lakes, and for his remarkable list of relationships with bait shop owners and dock managers across the state of Ohio. Jim always knew who to talk to if you wanted to fish Lake Erie for walleyes, Kiser Lake for bluegills, or fish the Florida Keys for tarpon and bonefish. He never, ever, missed a deadline, and he never missed an opportunity to meet someone who appreciated the outdoors. When he died in 2017 he left behind a legion of admirers, including young guys like current outdoors writer Ray Reilly, who can write fishing with the best of them.
In 2016 former Marion Local teacher, coach, and athletic director Stan Wilker approached me one night and said if there was an opportunity for him to help…that he’d like to join the Press Pros team. It took me about ten minutes to decide that Stan was a perfect complement to our mission. And for the next two years I could not have asked for a better friend and colleague.
Stan didn’t write, and he didn’t take pictures, but he literally knew every high school coach and athletic director from Cincinnati to Toledo and opened more doors for us than I could have imagined. He was fun, he was funny, and his passion for high school sports was rare because he truly felt that there was nothing better than Friday night lights. He delighted in knowing and visiting with average people, he loved his Ford Mustang, the Beach Boys, and the St. Louis Cardinals. We worked together for just two years before he got sick and passed in 2018, from cancer, and I will never again know a better person. I can only imagine what Stan would think now of what he left behind.
Tom Cappell came along after Jim Morris in 2017 to write our outdoors column for the next four years. Tom lived in Missouri, wrote under a number of different names for national publications, and didn’t know anything about Lake Loramie or Hoover Reservoir, in Columbus. But he was one of the most gifted story-tellers who ever wrote, and his stories about learning to fish and hunt with Uncle Mel, in Amlin, Missouri, are still read and shared. Tom passed in 2021 after unsuccessful heart surgery.
I tried for years to convince Mark Znidar to join Press Pros, if and when he might decide to leave the Columbus Dispatch. When he finally did in 2020 he paved the way to our coverage of Ohio State football, basketball, and baseball. He knew the ropes at Ohio State, and made that transition as seamless as possible. Writing major college sports is different from high school, and Mark, who wrote the Columbus Clippers for half of his 33 years with the Dispatch, knew all the angles. He passed suddenly, prior to the 2024 baseball season.
I cannot think of friend and former Ohio State writer Greg Hoard without tearing up. He was that good, that provocative, and so willing to tell the truth about sports behind the scenes. He once told me that if you don’t write what you see no one will respect you, whether they like your work, or not.
He was the original Jack Nicholson, who is still remembered for his line from the movie, A Few Good Men – “You can’t handle the truth!” And yet, Hoardie wrote it perfectly every day and never looked back to gauge its impact on readers. He was funny, he was well-traveled as beat writer for the Cincinnati Reds for the Cincinnati Enquirer, and he was a wonderful mentor. He had the unique knack of teaching what he’d learned along the way to other aspiring writers. He wrote Ohio State baseball for us from 2014 through 2020 and literally developed a niche audience for college baseball in a market stuck squarely between the Indians and the Reds.
Donald Trump would have loved Hoardie (I’m not sure the feeling was mutual) because he refused to call Cleveland’s baseball team the Guardians. “You don’t screw with baseball history, regardless of who it offends,” he once told me. “Don’t try to make Ty Cobb a nice guy, or Babe Ruth slim. And if Max Alvis (former Indians infielder) is in Heaven, he’s wearing an Indians hat, not the Guardians.”
As of Friday, Max Alvis was 87 years young and still living…in Jasper, Texas. Not Heaven.
Greg passed at home last February while we were in Texas covering Ohio State baseball.
I – we – owe so much to these friends because every one of them laid a foundation block for Press Pros. They saw an opportunity, were excited to do something different at a point in their lives, and I can truly say they did it to the utmost of their professional reputation. I know that some of you will remember.
And I hope you enjoyed…while they were here.
Wilson Health proudly sponsors your favorite area sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.