Herm Rogul, named names of Philly's young hoopsters

FOR HERM ROGUL, basketball was like a religion. His brief playing career ended on the playgrounds of West Philly, but he became a chronicler of those who went on to greatness in the eras when Philadelphia basketball was stalked by giants.

He wrote about them, befriended them and cheered them on. But as a sports columnist for the old Philadelphia Bulletin for 21 years, Herm also chronicled the doings of the lesser lights, the ones who rarely got their names published anywhere but in his column.

"He was a people person," said longtime friend and local sports icon Sonny Hill. "He was all about people. And he wrote about the disadvantaged on the sports social ladder, people who didn't get much coverage."

Herm Rogul, who once estimated he had had 6,234 bylines in the Bulletin before it closed in 1982, a mentor to anyone in sports or anywhere else who needed his knowledge both of the game and the art of sportswriting, died Tuesday. He was 72 and lived in Yorktown, North Philadelphia, within walking distance of his alma mater, Temple University.

He had been ill for some time, friends said, and lived alone. Although a man like Herm Rogul was never really alone. Friends dropped in constantly, figures from the sports pages, like Sonny Hill and venerable former Temple basketball coach John Chaney, another longtime friend. A cousin, Harold Katz, also cared for him in his final illnesses.

"He was very instrumental in my success," said Hill, founder of the Baker and the Sonny Hill Leagues, where some of the great pro players joined local talent to keep their skills sharp in the summer.

"Herm helped us," Sonny said. "He came to the games, wrote about the games and met the players. He was able to gain their confidence because they saw him around and trusted him."

Trust was a big element in Herm's professional career. "A writer should care about accuracy and treat people with respect," he was quoted as saying in an interview in the Daily News in 1995. "I liked readers to call me with questions. Today, some journalists won't answer their phones."

Herm wrote the People In Sports column for the Bulletin, from 1961 until the paper closed in 1982. It was chock full of names, of the great, the near-great and never-to-be great.

He liked being the first journalist to write about some athletes, including Bill Cosby, when Herm was a sportswriter for the Temple News, the university's undergraduate newspaper, and Cosby was a star athlete there.

"The first story about a person is usually the most important to them," Herm said.

Frank Bertucci, a Daily News sports copy editor who worked with Herm in the Bulletin's sports department, said Herm "made sure never to forget the nonpros, the little guys.

"He probably set several records for most names mentioned in less than 500 words of copy. The college athletes outside of football and basketball players were always his targets for features stories.

"He loved the Baker League when the games were played in the basement of Bright Hope Baptist Church at 12th and Columbia, when Sonny Hill and John Chaney were among the head coaches, and Earl Monroe and Bill Bradley showed up to play."

John Tyrone "Tee" Shields, a retired city juvenile-probation officer, played with Herm in a playground at 57th and Spruce streets when Tee was a student at Shaw Junior High and Herm was at Sayre. It was in those playground pickup games that Herm learned to love the sport, Tee believes.

Tee played for West Philadelphia High School, which Herm also attended, then went away to play for South Carolina State.

"He would stick my name in his column," said Tee, who was director of the Sonny Hill League and vice president of the Baker League.

"He was very unassuming, very quiet, but he got your respect. He was one of the great human beings, a great humanitarian. He helped a lot of young people."

"He was a big help to me in my career," said Donald Hunt, award-winning sportswriter for the Philadelphia Tribune. "He took an interest in me as a sportswriter, made suggestions and showed me how to be good at what I was doing."

Herm wrote the preface for Hunt's book, Chaney: Playing for a Legend, accounts by former Temple players of their experiences playing for the Hall of Fame coach.

Herm wrote a self-published book, Winning Sportswriting for Good People Who Really Care. The book contained a poem:

Maybe you lust for riches and fame.

Or you dream of covering the Big Game.

I hope you like people, as you should,

And want to write what makes people feel good.

"That was Herm's essence," said Daily News sportswriter Ted Silary. "Herm was the heart of the Bulletin sports department," Silary said. "His People in Sports column was a must-read and gave all kinds of people exposure they would have gotten nowhere else. He provided unique exposure and got people to reveal their souls merely by asking the proper questions."

In an article about the closing of the Bulletin in 1982, former Bulletin sports editor Herb Stutz used Herm as an example of the kind of dedication and loyalty staffers felt for the paper. Stutz said he got a call one day telling him that Herm had been mugged on his way to work.

"They took him to the hospital, patched him up, and wanted to send him home," Stutz said. "He insisted on going to work, and when he got there he apologized for being an hour-and-a-half late. I just don't think they make people like that anymore." Herm had no immediate survivors.

Services: 1 p.m. today at Shalom Memorial Park, 25 Byberry Road, Huntingdon Valley.