The Point: How Jim McKay shaped my life

When I heard last week of the death of Jim McKay, the iconic ABC sports broadcaster, I was in my car on my way to give a talk to a group of Philadelphia writers.

They had asked me talk about my career, and while I spoke primarily that night about how my work evolved from newspapers to books and film, the story most on my mind was how, 38 years ago, I ended up earning a living as a journalist in the first place. It was on my mind because of Jim McKay, who had a lot to do with it even though we never met.

In my freshman year at Loyola College in Baltimore, I had done some work for the Greyhound, the school's student newspaper. I had no particular interest in journalism. When I applied to the college, I had filled out a form detailing all the extracurricular work I had done in high school. It had seemed wise to put down everything, so I had included my very minor contribution - several pen-and-ink sketches - to the high school newspaper.

In what was his single most ambitious act in that position, as far as I could tell, the then-editor of the Greyhound had invited every incoming freshman in 1969 with high school newspaper experience to a meeting. I was the only one who showed up. Partly because I felt sorry for the paltry, overextended staff, I chipped in some contributions. Much to my surprise, every other person associated with the Greyhound graduated in 1970. The paper was about to go under.

Alone in the newspaper office at the end of that school year, I thought it was sad and somehow wrong for the student newspaper to die. Lining the walls were bound volumes of the Greyhound going all the way back to its founding in 1927. And now, for whatever reason, the proud tradition had expired. Campus journalism had become uncool.

I pulled some of the old volumes down to leaf through them, and as I turned through the years, I was surprised to find that the list of former editors was quite impressive. There were Greyhound editors who had gone on to become U.S. senators and governors. And there was this one fellow, James McManus, who had put out one hellaciously good student newspaper in the 1940s. I asked around about this McManus, who had graduated in 1943, and somebody told me he had changed his name. He had become Jim McKay. THE Jim McKay. He had left Loyola to serve in the Navy until the end of World War II, had worked as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun, and had gone on to television and broadcasting fame.

Like most of us who grow up in this country inundated by modern media, the world of celebrity existed for me as a far-off, unimaginably distant realm. To me, the international competitions narrated by McKay on

ABC's Wide World of Sports

might as well have taken place on a different planet. I was 19. I was more interested in getting high and getting laid than in getting educated. I had discovered an interest in writing without a clue how it might translate into a living. The money in my pocket came from manning a cash register at the local supermarket. McManus/McKay's name in those old volumes was like the beanstalk in the fairy tale. Rooted in that basement campus newsroom, it hinted at ascent to a better, more exciting place.

It made me see the near-death of the Greyhound as an opportunity. I had no idea how to run a newspaper, and had never aspired to do so, but if the tradition had led all these others to professional heights, then why not me? I could not see past the first step, but it suddenly seemed like one worth taking.

So I took it. I learned on the job. I recruited a staff, struggled to write headlines and lay out stories to fill the space, converted the printing process to photo-offset (cold type), wrote and drew much of my own material, and turned out a biweekly that was, without any doubt, the worst ever produced by students at Loyola College, a mark that still stands.

My influences were more Zap Comix and Mad Magazine than the New York Times. For no reason whatsoever, I called it the Greyhound Bus Company, and drew a bus logo for the headline. It was sloppy, crude, silly and often wrong, but sometimes lively and entertaining.

The Greyhound survived. I learned that the real fun of journalism was not making money, but making trouble.

That beanstalk led me to a full-time newspaper job after graduation. My past as a schoolboy editor-in-chief meant a lot more to the editors who hired me than my major in English Lit. It led me to The Philadelphia Inquirer (where I met my wife, Gail), and then to books, the Atlantic, Hollywood screenwriting, and this column. It helped us raise five children, and it supports us still.

So thanks, Jim McManus. We never met, but you helped shape my life.