 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
When journalists don’t know what else to do, we write. That’s what I’m doing now: writing to help cope with the loss of our senior sports writer Steve Ellis, who died Thursday after suffering a heart attack.
It's my way of saying goodbye.
Don’t worry; I’m not going to get all gooey. That would not be fitting. Steve was as genuine a guy as you get. A classic sports writer in the Oscar Madison sense. It was his job, but it was also his passion.
But I thought I’d tell you my view on the man behind the byline, the person you have been reading for close to 30 years.
On a freezing day, Steve was the type of guy who’d insist you take his jacket.
I was not surprised to learn he was an Eagle Scout or that he counted that among his most important achievements.
One day soon after I got to town, Steve called me up and said to meet him down at Doak Campbell Stadium. He wanted to make sure I got properly indoctrinated. I soon found myself sitting across a desk from the legendary Bobby Bowden, just chatting and sharing stories about mutual friends from Huntington, W.Va.
Steve took me – and my baseball fanatic son, who was then 11 – for a tour of the baseball facilities, where we met Mike Martin and most of the players.
Coaches like Bobby Bowden and Mike Martin weren’t always happy with Steve because of what he would write, but they sure did respect him.
Bowden, when he learned of Steve’s death, said he was kind of like a son to him. The more I thought about that, the more right it seems. Steve was like the son who grows up with a mind of his own, and – while always respecting the old man – sometimes has to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear.
Like when he wrote that he thought it was time for Bowden to step down. It hurt Steve to write that. But he did because he felt it was the right thing to say, not because he wanted to, but because he believed it had to be said by him, the guy who has covered the program for nearly 30 years.
When Steve finally had to miss work because of his heart attack, he wanted us to put that in the newspaper so that the people who criticized him for writing that column on Bowden didn't think he had gotten fired for it. I told him someone would have to fire me before anyone could fire him.
The strangest thing now is picking up a copy of the newspaper and not seeing his byline. A colleague reminded me the other day that I once remarked that Steve had 57 bylined stories in a month in which FSU had only one game.
Anytime I asked him a question about something, he’d write a story on it. He figured if the boss had a question, readers might, too. He just couldn’t stop himself.
He was simply amazing. The story about him making his wife send in his last story via e-mail when he had the heart attack before he’d go the emergency room is true.
When I announced his death to our newsroom staff, I called everyone together. I couldn’t look at their faces. I said: “Steve didn’t make it.” Then after a long pause I said: “I’m sorry, I have no other words.”
That his powerful voice on FSU athletics is now silenced is the most stunning part of all.
He simply loved what he did and appreciated that a million guys would trade jobs with him in a second.
We’ll hire someone to cover his beat.
No one will ever take his place.
…
It seems so appropriate to announce – with deep gratitude to Florida State and the FSU Foundation – that a scholarship fund in Steve Ellis' name for the benefit of prospective sports journalists is being established at the FSU Foundation. The address for making contributions is:
Steve Ellis Memorial Scholarship Fund
Florida State University Foundation
2010 Levy Avenue
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2739
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