Mary Garber, sportswriting pioneer, dies

[Songbird]

Never heard of her, but I'd love to read the way she wrote a gamer.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) _ Mary Garber, one of the country's first female sports writers, died Sunday. She was 92.

Rose Rush, a long-time friend whose father was an editor at the Winston-Salem Journal and Twin City Sentinel, said Garber died Sunday.

Garber was a sports writer for the Journal and the Sentinel from 1946 through 1997. She started as a society writer during World War II, and when the all-male sports department was depleted because of the war, she moved to sports.

She has been selected to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame and, most recently, the National Sportscasters and Sportwriters Hall of Fame.

Garber is survived by a niece and three nephews. Funeral arrangements were pending Sunday night.

 

[PaperDoll]

I never got a chance to meet Mary, except on video. But I remain forever in her debt. Without Mary Garber and other pioneers like her, many of the sportschicks on the board (including, perhaps <i>the</i> sportschick!) would not be in this field today.

Rest in peace, Mary. May you always have interesting story ideas, open locker rooms, supportive editors, and late deadlines.

 

[Dave Kindred]

Here's a link to a set of interviews with Ms. Garber done when she was 74. I did a Sporting News column on her maybe 10 years ago. Everyone I spoke to considered her a person of courage, dignity and integrity. A class act.
*******

http://wpcf.org/oralhistory/garb.html

 

[GoDeacs]

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/sep/21/mary-garber-longtime-sports-writer-w-s-journal-die/news/

 

[Sam Mills 51]

RIP to a pioneer, and a great one in North Carolina to boot.

Thanks for everything, Mary.

 

[awriter]

Anyone have an links to her stories?

 

[Dave Kindred]

Through the miracle that is Google, I discover that I wrote about Ms. Garber for the Sporting News only three years ago. Time crawls.
*****

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1208/is_/ai_n14713618

 

[Cadet]

I echo PaperDoll. RIP to a true pioneer and the first woman to win the Red Smith Award.

 

[WildBillyCrazyCat]

Mary was honored at a APSE convention a few years back, I think perhaps in '05. Although she couldn't make it, it was a nice tribute which someone taped for her.

 

[luckyducky]

She was the first female winner of APSE's Red Smith Award in 2005: http://apse.dallasnews.com/2005/jun2005/10-11oberle.html

RIP, Mary, and thanks for paving the way for so many of us in and just beginning our careers.

 

[Sxysprtswrtr]

Oh man. Such sad news. I know she has been in declining health, but it's still bad news to hear of her passing.

I met her once, and she has been a inspiration to me for a long, long time. Talk about gumption and not standing down to those who believe(d) women couldn't compete in this field.

RIP, Mary.

And for those who never heard her speak -- you wouldn't forget it, you knew when Mary Garber was in the room.

 

[gingerbread]

RIP.
To a true feminist.
And I mean that in how the word is defined. I have no idea how she'd vote, but it doesn't matter. She paved roads for all of us.

 

[Mediator]

She was the most prominent to be accepted as an equal long before anyone thought that was progress. Well done, Mary, and thanks.

 

[beardpuller]

Dang. She was a "little old lady in tennis shoes" when I was a college-aged stringer, which was a scant 30 years ago. I always figured she must have had it really rough, working in North Carolina, in the days when a woman writing sports was not just new but unfathomable to most people.