Nobody else will group these two guys together, but I just lost two of my favourite sports reporters – Craig Sager and Cam Cole.
I never met Sager, but I admired his work as a U.S. television broadcaster long before he started the fight with terminal cancer that killed him at age 65. He wore colourful clothes, worked very hard and showed us another side of the sports personalities he covered.
Cam’s clothes aren’t as colourful, but he also worked hard and helped his readers see the inside of every sport, every person he wrote about during his newspaper days at the Edmonton Journal, National Post and Vancouver Sun. Cam, my longtime friend and frequent golf partner, accepted a buyout package from his newspaper at the age of 62, so he’s still alive. Just retired.
Although they treated their subjects seriously, Sager and Cole – with their sense of humour – showed they never took themselves too seriously. They dedicated their lives to it, but they understand and understood: It’s only sports. That’s what made them special.