Journal Star staff
Gary Childs was the coolest co-worker to ever sit next to me on the Journal Star sports desk. The vetr’n (that’s how he used say it) sportswriter taught me a lot.
My lessons from Gary, though, began long before he was stationed at the desk to my right as assistant sports editor. This Peoria boy can almost say they started when I first began reading the newspaper, when Gary was covering University of Illinois football and basketball. Back when this kid was reading about the Illini, Gary was telling me the story. When the St. Louis Cardinals opened, made the playoffs/went to the World Series, Gary was there. And so was I.
When I got a job at 1 News Plaza, the vetr’ns at JS sports didn’t have much time for the new kid. Except for Gary.
The man with the biggest beats (Gary voted for the Heisman Trophy) embraced me the most. Everybody was a source to Gary, so Gary treated everybody with respect. He wanted to know where I was from, where I went to school, who my family was. Gary could learn from anybody.
And, oh, the stories. I was mesmerized when he’d recount the 1989 Flyin’ Illini’s run to the Final Four or when Cardinals pitcher Joaquin Andujar smashed a toilet with a bat. He loved to imitate Kenny Battle’s high, squeaky voice.
When Gary left the Illini beat, the stickler for details — he’d say “I sit corrected,” if he was doing so at the time — came to the desk and applied his impeccable journalistic skills to editing stories and writing headlines.
Gary had a hard edge, which came in handy when he had a tough question for the likes of Lou Henson or Bobby Knight (“a classic bully,” is how Lou-Do described him to Gary) or editing copy. “Don!” he’d scream when one of our writers was repeating the same mistake.
He also mentored reporters young and old. “Just ask, ‘How did you win the game?’ ” he told a staffer, who was finding it hard to talk to coaches.
School was in session, but more like the fun parts like homeroom.
Gary's Steamboat Classic Hall of Fame speech.
Long before YouTube went viral, Gary was playing things he pulled from cyberspace. Favorites included the famous “Who Goofed?” rant from Howard Cosell and mild-mannered DJ Casey Kasem caught on a priceless rampage.
Gary’s gone now. He died Friday at the age of 58. He fought cancer for months and we at the Journal Star knew the inevitable was coming all too soon. But, oh, the stories:
— Brian Ludwig
Friend on the fly
Two things I’ll always remember about Gary speak more to the person, and friend, he was.
Like Gary’s love for the Yankees, I love the Philadelphia Flyers. On one of his trips with Illinois he found a coffee-table book detailing the Flyers’ history and picked it up for me. Being a coffee-table book, it could not have been easy to travel with, but that didn’t matter to him. What mattered was doing something for a friend.
The other story I heard mostly second hand from my wife since I was at the front of the church at the time. But a few minutes before she was set to walk down the aisle, Gary came hurrying into St. Philomena’s. I didn’t know that part of the story, I just know it meant a lot that he was willing to give up a summer afternoon in August to attend our wedding.
— Kevin Capie
Indelible imprint
Gary was a special talent. He wrote the best leads on our staff, so clever.
Of all the people on our floor, I loved talking sports with him the most. His knowledge was broad and deep. He was the whole package. When you debated Gary, you had best be prepared or he’d expose you.
He helped shape the journalist I am today. In fact, he literally shaped who I am. Back in the 1980s, the staff was knee-deep in Daves. On busy Friday nights if you asked Dave a question, you got four answers.
Gary had enough of it and declared nicknames. I was tagged “Cleve” as a gesture to my northeast Ohio roots and love for my Indians and Browns.
Today, I meet players in the Rivermen locker room who call me Cleve. Some of them come and go without ever knowing my real name.
— Dave Eminian
Born into the beat
I remember being at the Illinois-Michigan basketball game in the 1988-89 season and talking to Gary at halftime. His wife, JoAnn, was there that day, too. Found out later that’s when she broke the news she was pregnant with daughter, Katie. It was an afternoon game, and Gary didn’t file his game story until about 10:30 that night.
— Nick Vlahos
A good read
One of the interests Gary and I shared was a love of reading. Because we also shared a workspace for years, we had plenty of time to talk about the books we were reading — for both of us it was usually several at a time.
One of Gary’s always was a presidential biography — a special birthday gift from his daughter, Katie, each year.
— Jane Miller
Yankees win! Yankees win!
If Gary was working and the New York Yankees were playing, there was a good chance at some point that night the newsroom would hear a rendition of Yankees announcer John Sterling capping another victory with his call “Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Yankees WIN!
It’s not that Gary was even a fan of Sterling. He was a fan of the Yankees, however, and the call was obnoxious enough that he would get a kick out of broadcasting it to the rest of us who rooted for less successful teams.
It was those kind of moments that made it fun to work with Gary. He would tell stories of listening to Whitey Herzog’s obscenity-laced monologues or getting shot down for an interview by Mike Krzyzewski — “I’ve got practice!” Gary would whine.
He was a master storyteller, in both his writing and his conversations. He was drawn to strong personalities, maybe because he was a strong personality himself. That is why he will be missed so much.
— Scott Blicharz
Seriously funny
He would spin around in the chair. That’s when you knew. Gary was a sports copy editor by the time I arrived at the Journal Star in 2001.
So, when Gary’s office chair swiveled around from the monitor, you perked up. He had a question. And you wanted to provide the answer.
Despite being always approachable, Gary The Copy Editor wasn’t one for pleasantries between he and the writer. Especially when vetting a fact or parsing a quote.
“No!” he would screech when a story was overtaken with hyperbole.
Gary even once got in the habit of donning a red hockey helmet when editing the stories of a writer whose prose was often painful.
The scene: Perched at his computer, oversized beanie atop a bald head, goofy look on his face. This was Gary’s professional life — serious about journalism but never too stuffy for a bout of irreverence.
Not a single story passed his fingertips that wasn’t better off for it.
Not to mention the people. We’re all better off for having known him.
Beanie and all.
— Wes Huett
Never forget the time
When JS sports staffer Steve Aeschleman died in 2010, Gary wrote a column about all of Ash’s “I’ll never forget the time” moments. Not long after that, us two former Chillicothe boys began greeting each other with that phrase.
There weren’t many “I’ll never forget the times” between this 2004 Illinois Valley Central grad and my 1972 Grey Ghost alum counterpart. But the one that stands out seems to be the most memorable.
As IVC fans celebrated winning the 2006 Class A baseball title, the newest JS part-time hire searched the stands for the lifelong Yankees fan. Gary nodded to his fellow Ghost, threw a thumbs up, and smiled.
I’ll never forget that time.
— Adam Duvall
Caricature of character
Gary was “unintentionally hilarious.” In my first week at the Journal Star last July, he trained me on the night cops shift. I will never forget that first night with him, but it was what he said in the newsroom that forms my memory of him.
I don’t think he ever knew how much I appreciated the random nature of those quotes. One of my favorites was, “I’ve never drank a cup of coffee in my life. I’m not proud of it, I’m not ashamed of it, it’s just a fact.” That’s something I will laugh about until my dying day.
Whoever said “It’s better to have character than to be one” never met Gary. He was a one-of-a-kind character, and he possessed the virtue in spades.
— Justin Glawe
Man of style and of character
My most endearing memory of Gary will be of his meticulous approach to reporting and writing. It was both his strength and his weakness as a writer.
Constantly in search of the perfect word or phrase, Gary would use every minute available to him within a newspaper writer’s work day.
If he covered an early morning event like his beloved Steamboat Classic, he would still be putting the finishing touches on his stories as deadline neared 14 hours after the race’s completion.
While that perfectionism tried the patience of the copy editors who needed to read and headline his stories, their angst was often tempered by the quality prose that poured forth from Gary’s fingers.
One of my favorite Childs phrases came from a Wrigley Field interview with then-Cubs manager Jim Frey. Gary had quoted Frey issuing a cautious appraisal of the team.
To which Childs followed with this line: “He will sell no nine before its time.”
Those of us who recall the effective Paul Masson wine commercials of the 1980s starring Orson Welles will recognize the witty play off the phrase “We will sell no wine before its time.”
That was Gary Childs at his best. It’s a style I dearly miss from a man of great substance.
— Dave Reynolds
The perfect paragraph
The request was simple: Write an anecdote about Gary Childs to be used in a staff tribute column.
Well, that is easy, I thought. After all, I worked with the man for 27 years and there are countless stories about Gary. I figured the toughest part would be choosing which one to use.
So I started writing. Then I stopped. I read what I had written. Nope. Not good enough. Not good enough for one of my all-time favorite co-workers.
So I started over and tried a different angle. Again, not good enough. Gary deserves better.
This went on and on and on. An easy assignment had turned into an agonizing experience.
Then it hit me. I was having the same struggles Gary would encounter when writing for the Journal Star. Gary strived for perfection. He was meticulous with every story, whether he was writing a feature on a Steamboat Classic Hall of Fame inductee or a three-paragraph sports brief.
So this is it. This is my tribute to Gary. I think he would smile.
— Joe Bates
Go to video of Gary Childs during his Steamboat Classic Hall of Fame speech.
