January 16, 1917- October 3, 2015
George Ross, storied Tribune editor, Oakland sports booster, dies at 98
George
Ross, an Oakland Tribune sports editor in the 1960s and 1970s who
played a prominent role in transforming Oakland into a major league
sports city, died peacefully Saturday night in a Portola care home in
the Sierra foothills. He was 98.
His
name may be unrecognizable to a current generation of Oakland sports
fans, but Ross was instrumental in getting the Coliseum Complex built --
he was invited to dig the first hole himself -- and he either
personally recruited or nurtured the Raiders, the A's and the Warriors
as Oakland tenants.
"He
meant a lot to Oakland," said George Vukasin, former president of the
Coliseum board of directors. "He was key to every sports team in
Oakland. He was pro-Oakland, a great fan of our teams. If I had a
problem, I'd call George, and he'd have the answer I needed. He was very
significant."
Ross,
an Oakland native who graduated from Fremont High in 1935, became
Tribune sports editor in 1961, one year after the birth of the Raiders,
who were in the midst of a 19-game losing streak. But Ross, always
seeing the big picture, urged readers to be patient until Al Davis
arrived in 1963 to give the team respectability.
In
1964, he met with Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City A's, and
helped persuade him to move the franchise. That happened four years
later, when Ross wrote from Chicago: "Oakland picked up a glove, laced
on its spikes, and joined the 67-year-old American League last night."
Ross
also used his powers of persuasion on Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli,
who brought the team across the bay in 1971. The Warriors won an NBA
championship in 1975, the A's won three straight World Series from 1972
to 1974, and the Raiders won their first Super Bowl in 1977. Oakland had
become the country's happening sports town. Ross' ambitions for his
hometown were realized.
Ross
also had a big heart. Tom Flores, a Raiders quarterback in the early
1960s who later coached them to two Super Bowl victories, was forced to
sit out the 1962 season because of tuberculosis. "I
was lost, and broke," said Flores, now a Raiders radio game analyst.
"George created a position for me (as a guest columnist). He couldn't
pay me a salary, but he arranged for gift certificates, which gave our
family a Christmas. George was a unique guy. Besides his passion for
what he did, he cared about the people around him -- he was one of us."
After
14 years as Tribune sports editor, Ross became an assistant general
manager at the newspaper in 1975 before rising to managing editor. In
1979, he retired and moved to Graeagle, two hours west of Truckee, with
his wife, Helene, whom he first met at Fremont High and who kept a
perfect score book at A's games. The couple had no children.
In
Plumas County, George Ross became a Graeagle councilman and a state
park docent. He taught mineralogy, he built a fire ring around Graeagle,
and he helped reintroduce giant Sequoia trees into the northern Sierra
Nevada, including on his own property. After 50 years of marriage,
Helene died, and George never remarried.
"George
was one of the best," said Frank McCulloch, former Los Angeles Times
managing editor who was a University of Nevada alum like his good friend
from Oakland. "One of the qualities that made George unique -- he's
personally and journalistically honest. It's giving the public the most
honest appraisal you can. He's the guy at the top of the mountain."
Though
Ross was perceived by some other media as a Mother Hen for being too
soft on the Raiders in their early years, feathers flew occasionally. He
befriended -- or vice versa -- Al Davis until Ross discovered Davis had
gone behind the back of Raiders owner Wayne Valley and cajoled the
team's other majority owner, Ed McGah, into signing a rollover contract,
legally binding Davis to the Raiders in perpetuity.
Ross
interviewed McGah to confirm what he had suspected and wrote the
explosive story. That's when Davis wrote off Ross, ending their
friendship. Ross regretted the bitter end of his friendship with Davis,
yet his job was to tell the truth.
"I
learned more about the newspaper business from him than anyone else,"
said former Tribune sportswriter Dave Lovecchio. "He always said it
didn't take any longer to do the job right the first time. He was right.
"In
2011, the Reynolds School of Journalism at Nevada established the
George S. Ross Scholarship Endowment to benefit journalism students on
the Reno campus. In 2014, he was named a Distinguished Alumnus by his
university.
Ross
was cremated, but there will be a memorial service in his honor,
appropriately, at the Tribune Tavern, 401 13th St., in Oakland on
Saturday, Oct. 31 from 1-4 p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment