Dick Schaap

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Richard J. Schaap (September 27, 1931 – December 21, 2001) was an American sportswriter, broadcaster, and the author or co-author of 33 books. He was known for his elegant prose and had a reputation as something of an intellectual; many columns consisted of broad sports essays, or "thought pieces." His autobiography, Flashing Before My Eyes: 50 Years of Headlines, Deadlines & Punchlines not only recounted some of his adventures, but was an anthology to his habit of name-dropping (531 celebrities). After his death in 2001, the autobiography was reissued under Schaap's original title- "Dick Schaap as Told to Dick Schaap: 50 years of Headlines, Deadlines and Punchlines," to coordinate with many of his previous titles. In 2002, he was inducted into the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame.

Contents

[edit] Early life and education

Born in Brooklyn and raised Jewish in Freeport, New York on Long Island, Schaap began writing as a high school student. At age fourteen he began writing a sports column for the weekly Freeport Leader, but the following year moved to the Nassau Daily Review-Star daily under future Pulitzer Prize-winner Jimmy Breslin. He would later follow Breslin to the Long Island Press and New York Herald Tribune.

He attended Cornell University and was editor-in-chief of the student paper, the Cornell Daily Sun, during which time he defended a professor before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He lettered in varsity lacrosse playing goaltender, where one of his proudest moments came while playing against Syracuse great Jim Brown. Dick Schaap believed that Jim Brown was the greatest lacrosse player that ever lived. During his last year at Cornell, Dick was elected to the Sphinx Head Society. After graduating in 1955 he received a Grantland Rice fellowship at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and authored his thesis on the recruitment of basketball players.

[edit] Bobby Fischer

Around 1955, Schaap befriended the adolescent Bobby Fischer, who later became world chess champion. They spent time together, such as going to New York Knicks games, and Fischer concedes that Shaap was somewhat of a "father figure" to him. In a news conference in 2005, prompted by questions from Schaap's son Jeremy, acknowledged that the relationship was significant that but that Fischer was still pointedly resentful that Dick Schaap had later written, among many other comments, that Fischer "did not have a sane bone left in his body".[1]

[edit] Writing career

Schaap began work as assistant sports editor of Newsweek magazine.

In 1964, Schaap began a thrice-weekly column covering current events. In the following years he wrote the 1968 best-seller Instant Replay co-authored with Jerry Kramer of the Green Bay Packers, and I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow... 'Cause I Get Better-Looking Every Day, the 1969 autobiography of New York Jet Joe Namath. These led to a stint as co-host of The Joe Namath Show, which in turn led to his hiring as sports anchor for WNBC-TV. In 1973 he became editor of Sport Magazine. Other books included a biography of Robert F. Kennedy, .44 (with Jimmy Breslin), a fictionalized account of the hunt for Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz, Turned On, about upper middle-class drug abuse, An Illustrated History of the Olympics, a coffee-table book on the history of the modern Olympic Games, The Perfect Jump, on the world record-breaking long jump by Bob Beamon in the 1968 Summer Olympics, My Aces, My Faults with Nick Bollettieri, Steinbrenner!, a biography of mercurial New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and Bo Knows Bo with Bo Jackson, one of the best-selling sports autobiographies ever.

After spending the 1970s with NBC as an NBC Nightly News and Today Show correspondent, he moved to ABC World News Tonight and 20/20 at ABC in the 1980s. He earned five Emmy Awards, for profiles of Sid Caesar and Tom Waddell, two for reporting, and for writing. He was also a theatre critic, leading him to quip that he was the only person ever both to vote for the Tony Awards and for the Heisman Trophy.

In 1988 he began hosting The Sports Reporters on ESPN cable television, which he began hosting in later years with son Jeremy as a correspondent. He also hosted Schaap One on One on ESPN Classic and a syndicated ESPN Radio show called The Sporting Life with Dick Schaap, in which he discussed the week's developments in sports with Jeremy.

Schaap died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan after complications from what was supposed to have been routine hip replacement surgery.

Following Schaap's death, the Nassau County Sports Commission created the Dick Schaap Award for Outstanding Journalism in 2002 as a tribute to Dick's career and also to highlight his roots in Nassau County, New York. He was also inducted into the Nassau County Sports Hall of Fame that same year.

The Sports Emmy division of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences renamed their writing category "The Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award". The 2005 Emmy in this category was won by Jeremy for a SportsCenter piece called “Finding Bobby Fischer.”

[edit] Quotes

  • "Finally, one last four-letter word concerning Lenny Bruce: Dead. At forty. That's obscene."

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Chess legend still intrigues people May 9, 2005

[edit] External links