O'Donnell: In sports media, Linda Hamilton came a long way before there was any way for women

FIFTY YEARS AGO, women attempting to gain a toehold in prime-time sports were being told, "You've come a long way, baby."

The fact that it was a teasing laurel from Virginia Slims - a Phillip Morris cigarette brand then courting women's pro tennis - wasn't completely lost in a puff of irony.

It was also an era when any strides by women in sports media were glacial.

And then there was Linda Hamilton.

At age 23, living on gumption and good fortune, Hamilton was sports editor of The Arlington/Mount Prospect Day.

The Day was no inconsiderable print-by-night.

It was a northwest suburban afternoon daily owned and published by Field Enterprises.

Field - at the time entering a third and final generation of family stewardship - was the muscular Chicago media duchy that then also included The Sun-Times, The Daily News, startup WFLD-Channel 32 and World Book Encyclopedia.

MEMORIES OF HAMILTON - who is now retired and living outside of Salt Lake City - were stirred by two recent events on the Chicago sports media landscape:

• The Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame announced that Toni Ginnetti will receive the "Excellence in Media" award at its annual induction dinner on October 5 at Wintrust Arena.

Too many years ago, Ginnetti was an award-winning news reporter at The Daily Herald.

In 1981, she changed lanes and began a distinguished 33-year run as a rock-solid member of the sports staff at The Sun-Times.

It was mythic Mike Royko himself who pushed S-T editor Ken Tower to bring Ginnetti into sports.

She proved that the talent scouting of Royko was as good as his legendary daily columning.

• Five weeks ago, The Daily Herald let it be known that Kathleen Danes would be its new sports editor.

Danes - an alum of both north suburban Stevenson High ('00) and the University of Missouri ('04) - is the first woman to hold the post.

She follows Mike Smith, who is almost certainly headed for The Northern Star Hall of Fame at his collegiate alma mater in DeKalb. That would seem double guaranteed as long as brilliant archivists like Mike Korcek are sustaining the best imaging interests of Northern Illinois University.

Danes is also only the sixth person in the 150-year history of Paddock Publications to be sports editor of The Herald.

She moves into a lineage that includes: Bob Paddock Sr., Bob Frisk, Jim Cook, Tom Quinlan and Smith.

She is also the first women sports editor of a daily in the suburban region since Hamilton.

WHEN TOLD ABOUT the new-mill succession, Hamilton poked fun at her legacy:

"Wow, I can't imagine no females have been sports editors in the area since me. I guess I messed it up for everybody."

Hardly - although the thought of a woman SE in a major metro area in 1968 seemed far less probable than Leo Durocher guiding the Cubs to a World Series championship.

Hamilton graduated from Prospect High in 1964. Her maiden name was "Gammill." She moved on to NIU. Midway through her junior year, she ran out of money.

Hungry, she got a job in advertising at The Day. Under the tutelage of an assistant managing editor named George Hamilton - who she later married - Hamilton began submitting stories to news and sports editors.

TAKING NOTE WERE the two primary power players atop The Day masthead - publisher John Stanton and managing editor Bill Kiedaisch.

Both were extremely sharp alumni of The Daily News, where Stanton - as managing editor - was a key accelerant in the ascent of Royko from city-side reporter to general columnist.

Both were also impressed by the drive and organizational skills of the determined lass in their midst at The Day.

When an incumbent sports boss left to be a columnist in Milwaukee, they offered their top spot to Hamilton.

No one felt any glass ceiling giving way.

SHE OVERSAW A FULL-TIME staff of four that expanded to six in 1969 with the addition of two recent Army veterans named Mike Imrem and Jim Stuart.

Imrem survived Vietnam. Stuart survived his subsequent role as right-hand man and chief creative associate of original Bleacher Bums founder Ronnie Grousl.

Hamilton was much more a crisply intuitive director than any sort of fervent feminist.

"Feminist? Absolutely not," she said. "They made my job much harder because most men didn't like them and my job was mostly dealing with men.

"A lot of those men automatically wanted to lump me into that women's lib category. So, many didn't trust me to begin with. I had to work a lot harder to earn their confidence."

HER RUN AS SPORTS EDITOR at The Day lasted from the summer of 1968 until June 1970.

On a bittersweet Thursday afternoon, Stanton called his corps together to tell them that Day Publications had been sold to Paddock Publications.

The purchase ended the four-year "war" between The Day and the newly energized Daily Herald.

The survivor would soar to once-unfathomable suburban heights with critical pushes from people like Frisk, Dan Baumann and Doug Ray.

THE HAMILTONS EVENTUALLY settled in Utah. There, she began a predictably dogged 30-year turn at The Deseret News in Salt Lake City that produced enduring friendships with people like Jerry Sloan, John Stockton and Rick Majerus.

"I was the first female sports writer in Utah. I was at the Deseret News until I retired in 2008," she recalled.

"There was no sort of intimidation back when I was that young sports editor at The Day. No trumpets blared. I did my job. I never had much trouble dealing with people. Some were surprised when they met me or heard what my title was. But most seemed to accept that I knew what I was talking about."

She did.

And when it was all done too soon, Linda Hamilton needed no teasing laurel from Virginia Slims to tell her how far she had come.

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears three days each week, including Sunday. And Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.