Tom McEwen, 1923-2011

Also, these words from Hubert Mizell, his direct competitor at the rival St. Pete Times.

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/hubert-mizell-remembers-tampa-tribunes-tom-mcewen/1173778

 

another legendary, all-time old-schooler who would always keep n.y. papers looking over their shoulders due to his deep connections from steinbrenner to parcells. we've lost another the likes of whom we'll never see again; today's newspaper 'stars' all fancy themselves the next hemingway and seek to dazzle us with verbiage. as depicted here, not many will remember mr. mcewen for his literary stylings but will smile recalling the 'mcewenisums.' but he was connected to ANYONE who was ANYONE in tampa, with more sources and phone numbers and access to more accurate INFORMATION he/readers ever needed. impossible in today's world for a newspaper guy ever get as connected or powerful as he did.

r.i.p., mr. mcewen.

 

There will never be another like him. Why?

For one, Because the business won't allow it. Today, a 40- or 50-year-old Tom McEwen very likely would have been "downsized" due to salary-slashing cutbacks.

On the other hand, perhaps Mr. McEwen wouldn't have allowed himself to hang around long enough to build a lifelong network of contacts and a vast well of personal, institutional knowledge in little old Tampa. Instead, these days he'd feel the pull to jump across the country every few months because that's the way things are done now. He'd be out to make a big, blustering splash online, gunning for that Holy Grail of a spot on the Pardon the Interruption screen that equals success and legitimacy in these empty-headed, blathering, Twitterverse days.

What made this a great, grand profession died a few years before Mr. McEwen did. May they both rest in peace.

Swing away, those who disagree. You'll be wrong.

 

The only thing I'd say is some of those PTI and Around the Horn faces have actually stayed, or did stay, at the same places for a long time.

No argument with the overall point, though.

 

RIP, Mr. McEwen.

 

when i say there won't be another like him i wasn't referring a local columnist hangin' around long enough to carry his kind of clout. i was talking more from what columnists have become -- mcewen's era of newspapermen reached that stature by having contacts, breaking stories, knowing how to schmooze folks for info while sharing drinks with 'em on the road, whatever. many of them required heavy editing help... today, it seems like every columnist coming up the charts fancies themselves a fancy wordsmith first, a journalist second. guys who require heavy editing still exist, as we all know, but they never (or rarely -- nene say never) become columnists. or takeout writers. they stay in the mucker-and-grinder roles.

 

Moddy,

There was the McEwen Cup - I believe it was called. It was given to the best golf team in the sports department golf tournament. Does that count?

 

Hey Tom, you were one of a kind.

 

Unless it changed in recent years, it was called the Writer Cup. (Ryder Cup ... get it? )

 

Love these memories of Tom. Love hearing what a sweetheart he was. For me in 1990, at age 20 trying to get a job with the Tribune, he was the most powerful man in my world. Terrified me, through no fault of his own. He was larger than life. RIP to a giant.