Warner Hessler RIP

[ducibej]

Warner Hessler, who covered the Buffalo Bills, Sabres, Washington Redskins and 26 Super Bowls during a long, productive career in Buffalo and Newport News, VA, passed away the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The memorial service was yesterday in Newport News. A good, industrious, hard-working reporter, he was considered part of the Redskins beat corps by the regulars long after he left the newspaper business.
He died about seven weeks after being diagnosed with a cancer that was obviously in a very, very advanced stage. Sorry to be so late bringing this to your attention.

If anyone is interested, the family is asking that donations be sent to St. Michael's Church, "The Fisherman's Church", 177 First Street, Biloxi, MS 39530.

 

[Moderator1]

Damn.
Damn.
Great guy. First time I covered a game next to him, my notes were covered with HIS play diagrams. Man knew and loved his football.
RIP Mr. Hessler.

 

[sg86]

Grew up in NN and used to read him all the time in the paper.

RIP Warner

 

[ink-stained wretch]

Sadness at his passing. He will be missed.

 

[spaceman]

He was the Man on the Bills. Sabres too.

 

[Keystone]

In the one year I ventured up to Redskins Park and RFK on a regular basis, Warner was one of the beat writers who didn't mind helping a newby. A class act.

 

[hate-d-mah-old-prepjob]

Very, very good guy.

 

[johncsports]

Warner was da man.

I grew up in Buffalo idolizing the Sabres and Bills and Warner was always around after the games hangin out, especially at the Old Aud. I'm not old enough to remember The Courier in Buffalo, but I do remember Warner.

He and my dad had mutual friends and soon began hanging out a lot. I picture "Hess" with those totally retro, even tho they were totally cool at the time, over-sized tinted sunglasses and chain smoking with a grin on his face. He was a great guy.

Later during the Bills Super Bowl years, my Dad and friends Mark Schmidt and others used to tag along with Hess. I always wanted to go but was still in high school. My Dad told stories of them running into guys like Mohammed Ali, Kevin Coster and Eddie Murphy and others at the Super Bowl parties. You know Hess loved just being there.

Years later, I wound up going to Maine for college and through a wild twist of fate I got a job writing for The Eastern League and local papers covering sports. I guess you could say I fell into it growing up around all the Buffalo athletes and great guys like Hess and Sabres photographer Bill Wippert.

Covering sports in Maine was covering sports in Maine - not exactly the center of the universe - but after a while (idolizing Hess and his Super Bowl parties from afar) I worked my way into covering the four majors.

On Sept. 28, 2003 we came full circle.

I headed down to Landover to cover the Patriots/Redskins and gave Warner a call ahead of time. We had a blast. I couldn't get over the "open" Redskins press box or the Redskins cheerleaders and I told Hess so. We laughed and shared a butt at halftime in the hall of RFK.

"What's wrong with the Redskins?"

Patrick Ramsey was pretty bad that day and Steve Spurrier didn't have any answers, but all in all we had a great time.

I'm currently in my sixth year at The Star-Ledger in Newark and I'm still covering sports. Haven't made it to any Super Bowl parties yet, but I have my fingers crossed I'll see Hess across the room and we'll share another smoke.

JC Hageny