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RIP Ken Denlinger

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Moderator1, Oct 3, 2015.

  1. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Terrific guy, terrific at his job. Wrote for the Washington Post for years. We overlapped on the Virginia Tech beat for a while and he was fun. RIP Ken.


     
  2. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

  3. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

    Huh. Surprised I never read either of those books. I devoured those type of books when I was in college, around the time the PSU one came out. Sorry to hear it. Sounds like one of the good ones. Love the story about him and Kindred pissing off Pollin.
     
  4. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Dave Kindred, who sometimes visits us here, made this public post on his Facebook page today so I'm sure he won't mind me sharing it here.

    I went to Frederick, Md., Wednesday to see Ken Denlinger, in the last days of years of cancer. In our time together at the Washington Post, he was all kindness and grace. His endurance of the cancer was an act of inspiring courage. John Feinstein and I were with Ken for an hour and half Wednesday. He was sharp, quick, and funny. Not that day, but previously, he had taken credit for saving John's career. For reasons familiar to anyone who knows John today, the John of 25 years ago had a public disagreement with a basketball referee. Before John could put his hands on the zebra, Ken interrupted, moving John away. "You've got a great future in this business," Ken told him, "if you don't get killed first." At the Post, Ken and I had an agreement on who would do the next Caps' hockey column -- the loser in our golf game would. After Ken did one Caps' column, he announced, "I've built an insurmountable 1-0 lead over Kindred." That, he did. When John and I left Ken, we both did what came naturally. We hugged him and kissed him. He died today.
     
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  5. BDC99

    BDC99 Well-Known Member

  6. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    One of the guys I grew up reading in suburban DC, either at the Post or the pm paper, the Washington Star. It was a helluva group: Denlinger, Kindred, Steve Hershey, Len Shapiro, David Israel, Boswell and the two Godfathers, Mo Sigel and Shirley Povich.
     
  7. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    RIP
     
  8. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    I'm not from the area, so I didn't recognize the name, but I do remember reading the Penn State book years ago. It was pretty eye-opening about how many kids failed to make it through four years on the team, for whatever reason.

    RIP. Sounds like he was a terrific journalist and great guy.
     
  9. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

  10. Pete

    Pete Well-Known Member

    Damn, that stinks. I never met Ken but felt like I did. My aunt was a longtime HS teacher in Gaithersburg, Md., and Ken wrote about one of her students who was a star athlete with a "tough" upbringing. I can't remember the kid now and this was probably 15+ years ago, but my aunt and he stayed in loose touch for many years afterward. My aunt was (and is) a tough, brook-no-nonsense woman, and I suspect Ken found her charming. I know she found him very charming.

    Anyway, when I became a sportswriter, my aunt would periodically forward me the correspondence between the two of them. I was always very impressed that he kept in touch so long, since I'm sure she started off as simply a teacher to give a good quote in a one-and-done story on a prep athlete. How many guys would do that? He's also motivated me to reach out to my aunt this week, which I should do more often anyway.

    RIP, Ken. By all accounts, one of the very good ones.
     
  11. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    RIP. He came and spoke to our class what seemed like eons ago, when he'd just left the Post full time and I was still at Penn State. He seemed like a genuine, classy guy.
     
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