McAllaster, Alan

Former Oakland Tribune sportswriter Alan McAllaster died on June 6, 2003. Alan had 76 years to make at least one enemy, but nobody knows of one, and so he died Sunday, a man with only friends. "I've never met a kinder man in my life," said his wife, Jackie. "He never complained, and he had a sense of humor. I couldn't ask for a nicer husband."

Mr. McAllaster worked for the newspaper from 1951 to 1990 before retiring. He died of complications from cancer in a Walnut Creek hospital. Mr. McAllaster's two favorite newspaper beats were Stanford athletics, and track and field. "

"He didn't know anything about track when he started," said John Simmonds, one-time Tribune assistant sports editor. "But once he took it on, he became an expert in it, and his compilation of East Bay high school bests, which he regularly updated, became a popular feature in the Tribune sports pages."