R.I.P., Jim Kelley

One of the funnier things Jim liked to talk about was what it was like being named "Jim Kelley" in Buffalo when the Bills were making their Super Bowl runs. He did some Bills coverage and whenever he ended up in the team hotel, he would get calls from young ladies wanting to come up to his room.

The Hasek flap was actually kind of a funny story too. The way I remember it, Jim's column that set Hasek off was about how Hasek poured so much effort and intensity into the season, maybe he was worn down by the playoffs, or at least, maybe his obsessiveness left him frazzled.
Hasek thought he had been called a choker. He yelled that Jim was "worst man in world!!"

That was how I greeted him for years afterward.

 

Wasn't a huge fan of Jim Kelley, but still sad to see him go.

RIP

 

Note to Moddy's: F0F started a thread on this over on the journalism site. Since he was (I would imagine) a friend of Jim's, could you move everything here over to his thread, please?

Thanks

 

This might seem like a small thing, but Jim went out of his way to give me a lift from the arena to the hotel after a preseason game up there early in my first year on a pro beat. I made sure I carried that example with me with other out of towners ...

 

When I interned at the News years ago, they had a bunch of writers talk to us once a week about the business. Kelley was one of them. He gave the best piece of column advice I've ever heard.

"Don't write what you think. Write what you know."

Words to live by.

RIP to one of the greats.