Archdeacon grew up in rural Ohio, Mercer County. Got his start in Florida but came back to Ohio almost 40 years ago and has been a fixture in Dayton ever since. He's covered everything in the sportsworld. It it the human interest, the back story that fills most of his columns, but this on the 1918-19 pandemic is more of a general facts type of story. I knew of some of these events, but this story has brought those and many other stories together. Not a single thing is mentioned about our sport of track and field, but this is still an important read.
Some History We Don't Want to Repeat by Tom Archdeacon Clik Here
George,
Just got around to reading this today. Wow! Brought back memories. Not of the Spanish flu; I'm not that ancient.
But Tom Archdeacon's byline brought back memories of when he worked for the old Miami News and I wrote a column on Running, twice a month, for the paper's Thursday People/Sports section. I never worked at the paper's office; I just ran my copy down (often did so, literally). But somehow I got to know Tom fairly well. And always loved his long form pieces. The Miami News was the city's evening newspaper so the Herald had already reported the overnight sports results.
Did you know Tom? My recollection is that at one point Sports Illustrated tried to hire him, I think to cover baseball, but he didn't want to be constantly on the road. Probably the first time SI ever got turned down by a young sportswriter. And, unfortunately, the Miami News, like virtually every other evening newspaper, expired a few years later. I knew Tom had gone to Ohio, but I don't recall if I knew that, by doing so, he was going home. Happy for him.
Geoff Pietsch
1 comment:
George---This current pandemic brings back sadnes to my family(my dad's side). My dad's mother--my grandmother died of the Spanish flu in Nov 1918. My dad was only 5 yrs old, his middle brother was 3 and his youngest brother was 1.
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