O’Donnell: Death of Gary Deeb recalls his sports media wizardry
GARY DEEB HAD NO RIGHT to think he would ever emerge as an unforgettable prince of sports & general media in Chicago.
His Lebanese-American father, Mike, was a truck driver. His Sicilian-American mother, Elvira, worked as a clerk at a department store in the family's native Buffalo. He had no college degree.
But during a dazzling 10-year run in Chicago newspapers — first at the Tribune (1973-80) and then the Sun-Times (1980-83) — Deeb came, critiqued and triumphed as one of the most influential media columnists in the history of American journalism.
He concluded his career in Chicago with a lucrative 13-year role as “media critic” at WLS-Channel 7 (1983-96).
The full truth of that was wunderkind Ch. 7 boss Dennis Swanson — the man who “discovered” Oprah Winfrey and was later the president of ABC Sports — wanted Deeb on the inside of the tent peering out rather than on the outside peering in.
DEEB, 79, DIED ON MAY 17 in Charlotte, N.C. Word of his passing was made public Sunday by sole surviving sibling Elaine Lamb of Buffalo.
While no cause of death was given, Deeb informed friends in early May that he had been hit with a sudden sequence of cardiac and kidney problems.
DEEB — IN HIS OWN WORDS — “covered the waterfront” as both a local and national media columnist in Chicago. But he also brought a memorable edge to his weekly sports column, a rarity when he started it at age 28 after a stint at the Buffalo Evening News.
At the Tribune, it ran on Tuesdays. At the Sun-Times, publisher Jim Hoge moved it to Fridays.
At either stop, it was appointment reading for all from mainstream readers on up to the most powerful sports titans in the land.
WHILE HE BEGAN AT THE TRIBUNE in October 1973 as a general media columnist, Deeb didn't unveil his sports chops until two months later.
Editor Bob Goldsborough Sr. asked Deeb to bring his power punch to anything sports.
“I was too new to Chicago to write with any particular insight or sizzle about local sportscasters, so I targeted what I knew,” he once recalled. “And that was national NFL types.”
The result was a three-part series on pro football that was particularly robust in its pinging of Howard Cosell, then in his apex on ABC's “Monday Night Football.”
NINE MONTHS LATER, assistant sports editor Bob Moylan convinced Tribune chieftains to make Deeb's weekly sports column a regular switchover from the newspaper's Tempo features section.
He hit a grand stride in 1976. That was the year he exposed doctored records behind Don King's “U.S. Boxing Championships,” produced for ABC Sports.
In a rare taste of humble pie, the exalted Roone Arledge had to pull the plug on King and his tour de fake.
That columning resulted in one of three Deeb placements as a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. (He was nominated nine times.)
It also helped set the stage for Time Magazine calling him “the terror of the tube.”
IN THE SAME HUNTING SEASON, he wrote a stretch of columns lampooning Bears radio mainstays Jack Brickhouse and Irv Kupcinet.
Kup's signature analysis-by-cliche “Dat's right, Jack” became a regional punch line.
Bears majordomo Jim Finks responded by not renewing the team's long-standing association with WGN-AM (720). The 1977 season kicked off with Joe McConnell and Brad Palmer calling the games on WBBM-AM (780).
(Kup and Deeb reached a detente of sorts when Deeb arrived at the Sun-Times. To his dying day in 1998, Brickhouse forevermore referred to the enfant terrible as, “your pip-squeak pal from Buffalo.”)
DEEB SWITCHED SIDES OF BOUL MICH in 1980 because Hoge was relentless in his pursuit of the star columnist and his prized readership. Hoge doubled his Tribune salary and threw in a secretary (the late Susan Prell) and a young “legman” named Robert Feder.
Three years later, Swanson and Channel 7 fulfilled Deeb's lifelong passion for broadcasting.
AFTER FIRST RETIRING TO BUFFALO IN 1996, Deeb later returned to Our Town for an appearance at the 40th Chicago Emmy Awards. He was asked what his most enduring advice would be for future writers attempting to dog-paddle in his ferocious wake:
“Give me insight into the people I'm watching and the people making the decisions about the people I'm watching,” he replied.
“Ferret out the redemption-less weasels and hurt the incompetent. Skewer the misplaced.
“And in those rare oases where you find such clear and compelling vision and talent, spotlight it. Encourage it. Work to constantly force them to raise the bar in their particular medium.”
NO SPORTS MEDIA COLUMNIST ever cleared a higher bar than Gary Deeb.
He was, quite simply, the greatest.
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.