Dick Schaap

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Image:Dickschaap.jpg Richard J. Schaap (September 27, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York – December 21, 2001 in New York City, New York) was a 20th century American sportswriter, broadcaster, and the author or co-author of 33 books. He was known for his elegant prose and had a reputation as something of an intellectual; many columns consisted of broad sports essays, or "thought pieces." His autobiography, Flashing Before My Eyes: 50 Years of Headlines, Deadlines & Punchlines not only recounted some of his adventures, but was an anthology to his habit of name-dropping (531 celebrities).

Schaap was raised in Freeport, New York on Long Island. He began writing as a high school student. At age fourteen he began writing a sports column for the weekly Freeport Leader, but the following year moved to the Nassau Daily Review-Star daily under future Pulitzer Prize-winner Jimmy Breslin. He would later follow Breslin to the Long Island Press and New York Herald Tribune.

He attended Cornell University and was editor-in-chief of the student paper, the Cornell Daily Sun, during which time he defended a professor before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). After graduating in 1955 he received a Grantland Rice fellowship at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and authored his thesis on the recruitment of basketball players. After completing school, he began work as assistant sports editor of Newsweek magazine.

In the 1950s, Schaap befriended Bobby Fischer, who became world chess champion in 1972. In a news conference in 2005, Fischer claimed that Schaap was a father figure, but that didn't stop him from hurling anti-Semetic insults at Schaap's son, Jeremy, a correspondent with ESPN.[1]

In 1964, Schaap began a thrice-weekly column covering current events. In the following years he wrote the 1968 best-seller Instant Replay co-authored with Jerry Kramer of the Green Bay Packers, and I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow... 'Cause I Get Better-Looking Every Day, the 1969 autobiography of New York Jet Joe Namath. These led to a stint as co-host of The Joe Namath Show, which in turn led to his hiring as sports anchor for WNBC-TV. In 1973 he became editor of Sport Magazine. Other books included a biography on Robert F. Kennedy, .44 about David Berkowitz, Turned On, about upper middle-class drug abuse, My Aces, My Faults with Nick Bollettieri, and Bo Knows Bo with Bo Jackson, one of the best-selling sports autobiographies ever.

After spending the 1970s with NBC as an NBC Nightly News and Today Show correspondent, he moved to ABC World News Tonight and 20/20 at ABC in the 1980s. He earned five Emmy Awards, for profiles of Sid Caesar and Tom Waddell, two for reporting, and for writing. He was also a theatre critic, leading him to quip that he was the only person ever both to vote for the Tony Awards and for the Heisman Trophy.

In 1988 he began hosting The Sports Reporters on ESPN cable television, which he began hosting in later years with son Jeremy as a correspondent. He also hosted Schaap One on One on ESPN Classic and a syndicated ESPN Radio show called The Sporting Life with Dick Schaap, in which he discussed the week's developments in sports with Jeremy.

Schaap died at Lenox Hill Hospital after complications from what was supposed to have been routine hip replacement surgery.

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