Darrell Davis: The legends of the press box

Since it’s the last day for Taylor Field’s southwest grandstand, an old reporter can pause to realize that not only are the locker rooms gone but so, too, is the to-be-demolished stadium’s press box.

The place where Bob Hughes used to formulate his Regina Leader-Post columns from “Chaos by the Creek.”

Where Doug McConachie of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix once smashed, I think, an uncooperative computer.

Where Norm Cowley of the Edmonton Journal, writing long after the place had been locked up, had to climb around a chain-link fence to escape, without looking down at the six-story drop.

Where some of the real old-timers used to spend the games staying warm by drinking whisky — I know that because 50 years ago I used to help my grandfather sweep out the press box.

John Robertson, Jack Matheson, Scotty Melville, Terry Jones, Cam Cole and so many Hall of Famers used to reside there.

My memories are mostly of the newspaper writers who used to swelter in the summer and freeze in the winter, but there have been legendary play-by-play radio guys up there from all across Canada: Lloyd Saunders, John Badham, J.P. McConnell, Ernie Calcutt, Bryan Hall and Bob Irving. TV personalities from Chris Cuthbert to Don Wittman to John Wells to Dale Isaac to Ernie Afaganis to Pat Marsden.

The media landscape has changed and there are so many ways now to follow the CFL, but it started with those guys in that old press box.