Zoneboy
02-14-2008, 03:26 PM
Link (http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/2008/02/longtime_plain_dealer_sports_r.html)
There are no official records on this, but Chuck Heaton probably holds The Plain Dealer record for most bylines.
The inexhaustible sportswriter covered just about everything in his 50 years at this newspaper, satisfying readers with his intelligent, conversational style.
At his prolific peak in the 1960s and 1970s, Heaton wrote a sports column, "Plain Talk," that ran four days a week, and simultaneously served as the Browns beat writer, turning out a daily story, plus a notes column, "Extra Points." He was at 24 of the first 25 Super Bowl games. Somehow, he found time to crank out a weekly column on TV sports.
Heaton, 90, died this morning, Valentines Day, at 7:20 a.m. after a short bout with pneumonia.
Before Browns training camp opened each year, he would continue his column and write all the sidebar stories on the Indians' home games, besides working the Kentucky Derby, the Indianapolis 500 car race, golf and tennis.
He covered local colleges when Baldwin-Wallace Olympic track champion Harrison Dillard and John Carroll football players Don Shula and Carl Taseff flourished.
He handled the "Glad You Asked" feature, in which he answered readers' daily questions, for his last nine years before retiring in 1993.
He turned out fast, clean copy, filling two type-written pages in 10 minutes if necessary.
Beloved writer
He was held in high regard among players, owners and readers for his objectivity, fairness and good sense.
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who grew up reading Heaton when he was a boy in Rocky River, had him on the short list of sportswriters to whom he would always return calls.
Former Browns quarterback Brian Sipe, long after he retired, would always end conversations with Cleveland sportswriters by saying, "Tell Chuck Heaton I said hello." When he heard that Heaton was to receive an honor, Sipe called from his home in California to get the date and time of the ceremony. He wanted to make sure to attend.
Heaton was inducted into eight halls of fame during his career. In 1980, he won the Pro Football Writers Association award for distinguished reporting. He received the honor before a breakfast crowd of 2,300 in Canton. His plaque resides in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
More honors
Heaton was also installed in the halls of fame of the Cleveland Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, John Carroll University, the Greater Cleveland Sports Foundation, the Touchdown Club, the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame and the now-defunct Sports Media Association of Cleveland and Ohio.
As renowned as he was locally, he gained more national attention as the father of actress Patricia Heaton, star of the hit television comedy, "Everybody Loves Raymond."
The writers of the show would occasionally mention Heaton in their storylines. He was a visitor to the set, socializing with the actors. Cable TV stations did three biographies of Patricia in which Heaton was interviewed.
Like father, like son
His son, Michael Heaton, a longtime Plain Dealer entertainment columnist, is the third-generation member of the family to work at this paper. Michael, growing up in his father's shadow, did not come to the PD until establishing his own identity and style at People Magazine in New York and the San Francisco Examiner.
Chuck Heaton's father, Charles, who died in 1937, was the transportation manager for the PD. His sister, Mrs. Edward O'Connor, was the wife of the paper's advertising manager.
Tragedy struck Heaton's life on Jan. 20, 1971, when his wife, Patricia, died of a brain aneurysm at age 46. They had been married almost 22 years and she was the mother of their five children. Her father was Seth Hurd, a longtime Cleveland judge.
Heaton married Cecilia Evers, an advertising executive, in 1975. Cecilia, called CeCe, and Heaton stayed together for the rest of his life.
Heaton was born Oct. 22, 1917, in Yonkers, N.Y., where his father was employed. He came to Cleveland as an infant and grew up here. He graduated from Lakewood High School in 1934 and John Carroll in 1938.
He graduated cum laude from Carroll, serving as sports editor of the Carroll News and the Carillon Yearbook. He was vice president of his class for three years and was on the tennis team.
After graduation, he became the JCU sports publicist and tennis coach. He was hired by The Plain Dealer in 1942, starting out on the news side. His first story was about the last milkman in town to make his deliveries with a horse-drawn wagon.
Wins Bronze Star
He went into military service for three years in World War II, serving in Air Force intelligence in North Africa, Italy, Corsica, France and Germany. He wrote a history of the 324th Fighting Group of the Ninth Air Force, for which he received a Bronze Star.
After his discharge in 1945, he returned to The Plain Dealer and was soon put into the sports department. He and the late Harry Jones were the bright young men of the sports department at the time. Both covered the 1948 Indians, who won Cleveland's last World Series.
In those days, the baseball reporting position was the top job in sports, and Heaton hoped to be chosen. But Jones was named the baseball writer and Heaton was given the Browns beat. As it turned out, it was a lucky break, for the Browns soon eclipsed the Indians as the No. 1 team in Town, featuring superstars such as Otto Graham and Jim Brown.
Nevertheless, Heaton maintained his card in the Baseball Writers Association of America. When he retired he held the No. 1 card in the association, meaning he had the longest working tenure of any baseball writer in the country.
Goes to altar
In June 1949, Heaton married Pat. They met on a Lakewood tennis court. She was a skilled tennis player, having been a member of the Junior Wightman Cup team in her late teens. She was also a fine swimmer and golfer.
Heaton had no trouble adapting to the Browns beat. His outgoing personality was perfect for dealing with the players. In later years he reminisced that it was more fun covering football in those early days because the players were not being paid like plutocrats.
"You could buy them a couple of beers and talk to them," he recalled in 1990. "Their salaries were about the same as sportswriters."
He became a fixture on the beat. He seldom wrote anything controversial, although he aggressively pursued news stories.
After the 1961 season, when quarterback Milt Plum complained to Heaton about his role in the Browns offense, the passer was quickly traded by the great coach Paul Brown.
Another major scoop came when he learned Browns coach Forrest Gregg was to be fired in 1977.
Three champions
Heaton covered the Browns when they won the 1954 NFL crown, beating Detroit, 56-10, and the 1955 title, when they routed Los Angeles, 38-14, under coach Brown. He was the only writer on a major newspaper to predict a Browns victory over favored Baltimore in the 1964 title game. The Browns won, 27-0, under Blanton Collier.
He had hoped to be named Plain Dealer sports editor when Gordon Cobbledick retired in 1964, but the job was given to Hal Lebovitz. That turned out to be a break also, for he continued to work at the PD until he finally hung it up at age 76. Had he been sports editor, he would have had to retire at 65, a company rule for executives at the time.
Pat had her hands full raising five children, but sometimes she would go on vacation with Heaton. In 1967, he took her to the NFL owners meetings in Arizona. The first day they were there, the sitter called and said Sharon had broken her leg. Pat flew back immediately.
Tragedy strikes
In January 1971, Heaton and Pat were getting ready to go to the Super Bowl in Miami. Their bags were packed. The morning before they left, Pat cried out, pains shooting through her head. She underwent two surgeries but died on Jan. 20, 1971.
The shocked Heaton was left with his five children, Sharon, 20, Alice, 18, Michael, 14, Patricia, 12, and Frances, 10.
In July 1972, on the day of Alice's wedding, Heaton wrote a column saying coach Nick Skorich would have to get along without his help for a few days. His daughter was getting married.
Heaton continued to work hard. Aside from his Plain Dealer duties, he was the area correspondent for Sports Illustrated and wrote in Pro Football Digest.
"He had five kids to support," recalled Michael. "We went to Catholic schools on his free-lancing."
Good job
Heaton was a devout Roman Catholic, a daily communicant. He liked to jog and was not averse to taking a drink. He would have a martini before dinner each night. Often he would have a drink before writing a story. Michael recalls coming into the kitchen of their Bay Village home and seeing him listening on the radio to an Indians game, typing a story, a beer at his side.
"That looks like a good job," the son thought. Heaton often took the boy to the Browns training camp in Hiram or brought him to the office on his day off, when he would answer mail. Michael answered the phones in the office for a while, giving scores to callers.
As a measure of the esteem in which he was held by players, Browns running back Leroy Kelly chose Heaton to be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Heaton covered the Browns into his 70s, working on features and sidebars. Two years after his retirement, owner Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore. Heaton immediately phoned him. Modell said that was the second call he had received. The other was from President George Bush.
Heaton asked Modell to leave the Browns name and colors in Cleveland. Whether the sportswriter's call had anything to do with it or not, Modell acquiesced. Everybody liked Heaton.
There are no official records on this, but Chuck Heaton probably holds The Plain Dealer record for most bylines.
The inexhaustible sportswriter covered just about everything in his 50 years at this newspaper, satisfying readers with his intelligent, conversational style.
At his prolific peak in the 1960s and 1970s, Heaton wrote a sports column, "Plain Talk," that ran four days a week, and simultaneously served as the Browns beat writer, turning out a daily story, plus a notes column, "Extra Points." He was at 24 of the first 25 Super Bowl games. Somehow, he found time to crank out a weekly column on TV sports.
Heaton, 90, died this morning, Valentines Day, at 7:20 a.m. after a short bout with pneumonia.
Before Browns training camp opened each year, he would continue his column and write all the sidebar stories on the Indians' home games, besides working the Kentucky Derby, the Indianapolis 500 car race, golf and tennis.
He covered local colleges when Baldwin-Wallace Olympic track champion Harrison Dillard and John Carroll football players Don Shula and Carl Taseff flourished.
He handled the "Glad You Asked" feature, in which he answered readers' daily questions, for his last nine years before retiring in 1993.
He turned out fast, clean copy, filling two type-written pages in 10 minutes if necessary.
Beloved writer
He was held in high regard among players, owners and readers for his objectivity, fairness and good sense.
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who grew up reading Heaton when he was a boy in Rocky River, had him on the short list of sportswriters to whom he would always return calls.
Former Browns quarterback Brian Sipe, long after he retired, would always end conversations with Cleveland sportswriters by saying, "Tell Chuck Heaton I said hello." When he heard that Heaton was to receive an honor, Sipe called from his home in California to get the date and time of the ceremony. He wanted to make sure to attend.
Heaton was inducted into eight halls of fame during his career. In 1980, he won the Pro Football Writers Association award for distinguished reporting. He received the honor before a breakfast crowd of 2,300 in Canton. His plaque resides in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
More honors
Heaton was also installed in the halls of fame of the Cleveland Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, John Carroll University, the Greater Cleveland Sports Foundation, the Touchdown Club, the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame and the now-defunct Sports Media Association of Cleveland and Ohio.
As renowned as he was locally, he gained more national attention as the father of actress Patricia Heaton, star of the hit television comedy, "Everybody Loves Raymond."
The writers of the show would occasionally mention Heaton in their storylines. He was a visitor to the set, socializing with the actors. Cable TV stations did three biographies of Patricia in which Heaton was interviewed.
Like father, like son
His son, Michael Heaton, a longtime Plain Dealer entertainment columnist, is the third-generation member of the family to work at this paper. Michael, growing up in his father's shadow, did not come to the PD until establishing his own identity and style at People Magazine in New York and the San Francisco Examiner.
Chuck Heaton's father, Charles, who died in 1937, was the transportation manager for the PD. His sister, Mrs. Edward O'Connor, was the wife of the paper's advertising manager.
Tragedy struck Heaton's life on Jan. 20, 1971, when his wife, Patricia, died of a brain aneurysm at age 46. They had been married almost 22 years and she was the mother of their five children. Her father was Seth Hurd, a longtime Cleveland judge.
Heaton married Cecilia Evers, an advertising executive, in 1975. Cecilia, called CeCe, and Heaton stayed together for the rest of his life.
Heaton was born Oct. 22, 1917, in Yonkers, N.Y., where his father was employed. He came to Cleveland as an infant and grew up here. He graduated from Lakewood High School in 1934 and John Carroll in 1938.
He graduated cum laude from Carroll, serving as sports editor of the Carroll News and the Carillon Yearbook. He was vice president of his class for three years and was on the tennis team.
After graduation, he became the JCU sports publicist and tennis coach. He was hired by The Plain Dealer in 1942, starting out on the news side. His first story was about the last milkman in town to make his deliveries with a horse-drawn wagon.
Wins Bronze Star
He went into military service for three years in World War II, serving in Air Force intelligence in North Africa, Italy, Corsica, France and Germany. He wrote a history of the 324th Fighting Group of the Ninth Air Force, for which he received a Bronze Star.
After his discharge in 1945, he returned to The Plain Dealer and was soon put into the sports department. He and the late Harry Jones were the bright young men of the sports department at the time. Both covered the 1948 Indians, who won Cleveland's last World Series.
In those days, the baseball reporting position was the top job in sports, and Heaton hoped to be chosen. But Jones was named the baseball writer and Heaton was given the Browns beat. As it turned out, it was a lucky break, for the Browns soon eclipsed the Indians as the No. 1 team in Town, featuring superstars such as Otto Graham and Jim Brown.
Nevertheless, Heaton maintained his card in the Baseball Writers Association of America. When he retired he held the No. 1 card in the association, meaning he had the longest working tenure of any baseball writer in the country.
Goes to altar
In June 1949, Heaton married Pat. They met on a Lakewood tennis court. She was a skilled tennis player, having been a member of the Junior Wightman Cup team in her late teens. She was also a fine swimmer and golfer.
Heaton had no trouble adapting to the Browns beat. His outgoing personality was perfect for dealing with the players. In later years he reminisced that it was more fun covering football in those early days because the players were not being paid like plutocrats.
"You could buy them a couple of beers and talk to them," he recalled in 1990. "Their salaries were about the same as sportswriters."
He became a fixture on the beat. He seldom wrote anything controversial, although he aggressively pursued news stories.
After the 1961 season, when quarterback Milt Plum complained to Heaton about his role in the Browns offense, the passer was quickly traded by the great coach Paul Brown.
Another major scoop came when he learned Browns coach Forrest Gregg was to be fired in 1977.
Three champions
Heaton covered the Browns when they won the 1954 NFL crown, beating Detroit, 56-10, and the 1955 title, when they routed Los Angeles, 38-14, under coach Brown. He was the only writer on a major newspaper to predict a Browns victory over favored Baltimore in the 1964 title game. The Browns won, 27-0, under Blanton Collier.
He had hoped to be named Plain Dealer sports editor when Gordon Cobbledick retired in 1964, but the job was given to Hal Lebovitz. That turned out to be a break also, for he continued to work at the PD until he finally hung it up at age 76. Had he been sports editor, he would have had to retire at 65, a company rule for executives at the time.
Pat had her hands full raising five children, but sometimes she would go on vacation with Heaton. In 1967, he took her to the NFL owners meetings in Arizona. The first day they were there, the sitter called and said Sharon had broken her leg. Pat flew back immediately.
Tragedy strikes
In January 1971, Heaton and Pat were getting ready to go to the Super Bowl in Miami. Their bags were packed. The morning before they left, Pat cried out, pains shooting through her head. She underwent two surgeries but died on Jan. 20, 1971.
The shocked Heaton was left with his five children, Sharon, 20, Alice, 18, Michael, 14, Patricia, 12, and Frances, 10.
In July 1972, on the day of Alice's wedding, Heaton wrote a column saying coach Nick Skorich would have to get along without his help for a few days. His daughter was getting married.
Heaton continued to work hard. Aside from his Plain Dealer duties, he was the area correspondent for Sports Illustrated and wrote in Pro Football Digest.
"He had five kids to support," recalled Michael. "We went to Catholic schools on his free-lancing."
Good job
Heaton was a devout Roman Catholic, a daily communicant. He liked to jog and was not averse to taking a drink. He would have a martini before dinner each night. Often he would have a drink before writing a story. Michael recalls coming into the kitchen of their Bay Village home and seeing him listening on the radio to an Indians game, typing a story, a beer at his side.
"That looks like a good job," the son thought. Heaton often took the boy to the Browns training camp in Hiram or brought him to the office on his day off, when he would answer mail. Michael answered the phones in the office for a while, giving scores to callers.
As a measure of the esteem in which he was held by players, Browns running back Leroy Kelly chose Heaton to be his presenter when he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1994.
Heaton covered the Browns into his 70s, working on features and sidebars. Two years after his retirement, owner Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore. Heaton immediately phoned him. Modell said that was the second call he had received. The other was from President George Bush.
Heaton asked Modell to leave the Browns name and colors in Cleveland. Whether the sportswriter's call had anything to do with it or not, Modell acquiesced. Everybody liked Heaton.