Ted Silary, longtime Daily News sportswriter, has died at 72

Ted Silary, 72, of Voorhees, longtime sportswriter for the Daily News, Bulletin, and Montgomery Publishing Co., died Thursday, May 18, of sepsis at Virtua Marlton Hospital.

The acknowledged king of high school sportswriting in Philadelphia for more than three decades, Mr. Silary was also a soft-spoken mentor to dozens of other reporters and editors, and a zealous advocate for high school athletes. He chronicled their highs and lows, wins and losses, and life behind the scenes in Philadelphia for the Daily News from 1977 to 2013.

He covered thousands of high school games, mostly football and boys’ basketball, over 36 years, and interviewed at least three times as many players, coaches, and parents. He carried his own camera to take photos at games and wound up writing about the grandchildren of players he had covered decades before.

He talked to the kids more than the adults, and everybody said the same thing as he rose to local media fame: “It was never about Ted.”

“He said the kids all had different stories and their voices had to be heard,” said his daughter, Kristen Rodriguez. Pat McLoone, Mr. Silary’s longtime editor at the Daily News, said: “He thought it was their time to shine. He wrote about their hopes and dreams and produced gems of stories.”

Indeed, coverage by Mr. Silary turned even average high school players into neighborhood celebrities, and his tales went viral in the pages of the Daily News long before the internet. He was celebrated for giving players such nicknames as “Meatball” and “Goose,” and wrote tender stories such as the 1985 piece about Ernie Gallagher, an orphan on the Father Judge basketball team.

One of his favorite stories, he told the Patriot-News of Harrisburg in 2009, was about a football team that went 27 games without winning or even scoring a point. Finally, in 1982, victory was achieved.

“In the overall scope, the game meant nothing,” Mr. Silary told the Patriot-News. “It wasn’t any sort of championship or anything. But just seeing how happy all those kids were, I’ll never forget it.”

Mr. Silary was so devoted to high school sports that he complained to McLoone about missing a local football game because the Daily News sent him to Toronto to cover the Phillies in the 1993 World Series. Former colleagues still marvel at his legendary work ethic, and editors called him “the gobbler” because his many high school stories ate up so much space in the newspaper.

He was so plugged in to the community through high school sports that he passed on news tips to crime reporters, and former Daily News sports writer Ed Barkowitz said watching Mr. Silary work on the sidelines and in the office “was better than a semester of any journalism class.”

He covered a Public League boys’ basketball championship game on March 4, 1990, and was finishing up his article when news broke that college star Hank Gathers had died. “Ted sprung into action and produced a masterpiece,” said former Daily News copyeditor Jim DeStefano. “His day started in the early afternoon and didn’t end until well after midnight.”

Mr. Silary also created a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it website of countless football and basketball statistics, schedules, photos, and stories all decked out in blue, yellow, red, and green highlights. He debuted tedsilary.com in 1999 and updated its contents until just a few years ago.

» READ MORE: Mike Jensen: Silary covered city high school sports like nobody ever did or could

“It’s a milestone if you touch one person in a positive way during your life,” said former Daily News writer and editor Drew McQuade. “Ted touched so many. … He left footprints anyone would be proud to walk in.”

Mr. Silary was on the advisory panel for the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. He was named the 1999-2000 Inter-Academic League’s person of the year for his reporting and won the 2000 Jesse Abramson Award from the Penn Relays for exceptional media coverage. He also declined many other honors his admirers tried to bestow.

“For years, we had something special in the Daily News sports department,” McLoone said, “and Ted was the embodiment of that.”

Theodore Harold Silary Jr. was born March 29, 1951, in a Philadelphia home for unwed mothers. He was adopted by Ted and Elizabeth Silary before he was 1, had one sister with that family, grew up in Germantown and Glenside, and graduated from William Penn Charter School in 1969.

“They did everything possible for me,” Mr. Silary told Daily News columnist Larry McMullen of his adoptive parents in 1975. He had contacted McMullen about his search for his birth parents, and the columnist helped him connect with his birth mother.

“She sounded relieved to know I had turned out all right,” Mr. Silary told McMullen. “At least I know now. I know who I am and where I came from.”

He was super competitive even as a kid but didn’t participate in many sports in high school due to scoliosis. So he turned to writing about the people who played and coached. He studied radio, TV, and journalism at Ithaca College and Temple University for three years and dropped out in 1972 to take a sportswriting job at Montgomery Publishing in Fort Washington.

He married and divorced twice before marrying Barbara Schurig in 1985 and had daughter Kristen and son Kevin. After a divorce, he met Anne Pacchiano, and they married in 2014. He also had son Ted. His wife died last year.

Mr. Silary left Montgomery Publishing in 1975 to join the Bulletin’s sports staff. He moved to the Daily News two years later and worked mostly nights and weekends until he retired. For years, he took his children on memorable summer vacations to Ocean City and elsewhere, and they visited nearly every major-league baseball stadium in the country.

He had an engaging smile when he wasn’t on deadline and a recognizable gait as he prowled the sidelines. “He was reserved, soft-spoken,” his daughter said. “He was funny, too. Most of all, he was very supportive.”

Mr. Silary told the Patriot-News in 2009: “It’s been a lot of fun all these years.”

McLoone said: ”He loved to see people have success.”

Everybody said: “Nobody did high school sports like Ted.”

In addition to his children and former wife Barbara, Mr. Silary is survived by three granddaughters, a sister, and other relatives.

He requested that no services be held. A private celebration of his life is to be later.

Donations in his name may be made to the Police Athletic League of Philadelphia, 3068 Belgrade St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19134.