An icon passes…

I know I’m a day late on this, but when a legend in sports passes away, one that is probably never going to be replaced, as the common blogger that I am, I felt that I needed to say something. As most of you know, Jim McKay passed away yesterday at the age of 86 and he will be missed by anyone that has anything to do with covering sports.

I’m not going to talk about the things that Mr. McKay did, there are plenty of sites that can do that a lot better than I could ever imagine to do. What I will say is that in the 1972 Olympics, when that terrible tragedy happened, one of my father’s friends lost his son. Jim McKay was the human voice that told him (and my father who was there with him) that the hostage situation had turned into a massacre. It was that voice of pure professionalism and humanity that made such a horrible crime just a tiny bit bearable. It was Jim McKay who had the hardest ever reporting job to do, especially when you think about the fact that the ordeal took over a day to develop, and he did it with the upmost of perfection and compassion. I remember my dad telling the story about how no one would go to bed because they were waiting, or better yet hoping, to hear some news but then praying for it not to be bad.

I still remember to this day when my father told me “if I ever have to give bad news, may I have the grace to do it like he (Jim McKay) did it”. That compliment always stayed with me, as well as the one that was once said of McKay, saying that “a picture is worth a 1,000 words, but one of his words was worth 1,000 pictures”. In a world that looks way too much ahead, today I looked back and remembered the man that was behind the microphone for great events and one very, very awful one, and I reminded myself that whether I stay as a blogger or move up in my career in writing about sports I have the trail to follow, and that one is the one that Jim McKay laid out.

I will finish this small and humble post by giving my condolences to his family, and remembering that while he is gone he will never be forgotten!

If anyone wishes to translate this please feel free, I could not do this blog in italian for the fear that my words would not be the right ones.