Remember the time Dale Lolley, Matt Sunday and I got stuck for a seeming eternity waiting for a connection on the flight home from covering football in Jacksonville?
Rob Ullman remembered. He reached out and shared the ridiculous cartoon he whipped up that same day upon learning of our plight:
ROB ULLMAN / DKPS
Sure didn't feel like it then, but those were good times.
The phone's been buzzing and beeping all day, all night. I heard from Sunday. In fact, as I'm typing this, Sunday keeps sending more and more photos of us, as he's wont to do. And then I kept hearing from more and more of our people who've been here over our 11 years.
I was most moved by Alex Stumpf, our previous baseball writer now with MLB.com, tweeting out, "Dale was a huge help early in my career when I was figuring out how to be a beat reporter. I had a veteran I could look up to and see how to do the job, how to present information, how to push back when needed. Hell of a journalist. I was lucky to get to work with him."
We all were. We all learned. We all got better.
Because, as with that eternal day at that airport, he was always the adult in the room. The rest of us, whether via age or maturity, were the children. He was the one who straightened us out. He was the one who took us, collectively and individually, from being the cute, wild newcomer on the scene to ... well, not quite as professional and poised as him, but closer.
But I'm going to share a story here with you that also harkens back to Alex's tweet. Because in the thread underneath it, Alex links to Dale's extraordinary five-part series encompassing his truly definitive interview with Troy Polamalu.
Which is when I got to see, in a great rarity, the kid in him come out.
Dale was extremely competitive. He wanted to win every situation, doubly so as a reporter. But for a long time, because he was with the Washington Observer-Reporter, a modest-sized paper in the regional mix, he couldn't do what he wanted. He was needed, understandably, to cover high school athletics, to edit copy, to build entire sports sections. So when he'd cover the Steelers -- and by that I mean every practice, every press conference, every home game -- he'd most often be doing that because he saw himself as someone who should be doing that. So he did. At a high level. For many years.
When he came our way Oct. 22, 2017, for the first time in his career, covering the Steelers was all he had to do. (Well, that and caring for the family and coaching/umpiring youth baseball and all his other personal loves.) And he was traveling to all the games, calling all his own shots, doing everything he'd wanted. Which was wonderful to watch. The football fans who'd known the name of the other veteran writers in town now were learning his, as well. He was seen no differently, treated no differently. Because he'd earned that.
Before Troy was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020, it was Dale who'd been chosen to represent our city in that process, one which requires that individual to make a presentation on behalf of a candidate. Dale was proud of this but also uncharacteristically nervous. This was his moment, too. He wanted to shine just as Troy had always shined. He wanted to be up to it.
He was. Nailed it. Crushed it, actually.
When it was done and the candidates/honorees were now welcomed into the room, after Troy had completed the standard shaking of hands, he sought out Dale and asked if he needed anything one-on-one. Which Mr. Competitive wasn't about to pass up.
Crushed that, too. The resulting exclusive interview remains, as Dale was often reminding me, the most-read article of any kind in the history of our site, with more than 300,000 views.
Fortunately, a colleague from another city, sharp enough to sense what was happening, captured that moment with this photo:
FOR DKPS
Uh-huh. Look at him.
He called me from out there. Right out of the room. I'd never heard him like that. Like a child who'd literally belted a ball over the fence. He'd send me that pic, too.
He made it.
And then, to go on to the job of his dreams when the opportunity arose in 2022 and work for/with the Steelers while always maintaining his journalistic principles, while still approaching the job in a bulldog way and still writing about the team right through a handful of days ago, no matter how often I'd urged him to not worry about work right down to our final text exchange over the weekend ... yeah, he made it.
You made it, my brother. You made it.
And my God, you'll be missed. By so many of us ...
THE ASYLUM
DK: Remembering our friend Dale
Remember the time Dale Lolley, Matt Sunday and I got stuck for a seeming eternity waiting for a connection on the flight home from covering football in Jacksonville?
Rob Ullman remembered. He reached out and shared the ridiculous cartoon he whipped up that same day upon learning of our plight:
ROB ULLMAN / DKPS
Sure didn't feel like it then, but those were good times.
The phone's been buzzing and beeping all day, all night. I heard from Sunday. In fact, as I'm typing this, Sunday keeps sending more and more photos of us, as he's wont to do. And then I kept hearing from more and more of our people who've been here over our 11 years.
I was most moved by Alex Stumpf, our previous baseball writer now with MLB.com, tweeting out, "Dale was a huge help early in my career when I was figuring out how to be a beat reporter. I had a veteran I could look up to and see how to do the job, how to present information, how to push back when needed. Hell of a journalist. I was lucky to get to work with him."
We all were. We all learned. We all got better.
Because, as with that eternal day at that airport, he was always the adult in the room. The rest of us, whether via age or maturity, were the children. He was the one who straightened us out. He was the one who took us, collectively and individually, from being the cute, wild newcomer on the scene to ... well, not quite as professional and poised as him, but closer.
But I'm going to share a story here with you that also harkens back to Alex's tweet. Because in the thread underneath it, Alex links to Dale's extraordinary five-part series encompassing his truly definitive interview with Troy Polamalu.
Which is when I got to see, in a great rarity, the kid in him come out.
Dale was extremely competitive. He wanted to win every situation, doubly so as a reporter. But for a long time, because he was with the Washington Observer-Reporter, a modest-sized paper in the regional mix, he couldn't do what he wanted. He was needed, understandably, to cover high school athletics, to edit copy, to build entire sports sections. So when he'd cover the Steelers -- and by that I mean every practice, every press conference, every home game -- he'd most often be doing that because he saw himself as someone who should be doing that. So he did. At a high level. For many years.
When he came our way Oct. 22, 2017, for the first time in his career, covering the Steelers was all he had to do. (Well, that and caring for the family and coaching/umpiring youth baseball and all his other personal loves.) And he was traveling to all the games, calling all his own shots, doing everything he'd wanted. Which was wonderful to watch. The football fans who'd known the name of the other veteran writers in town now were learning his, as well. He was seen no differently, treated no differently. Because he'd earned that.
Before Troy was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2020, it was Dale who'd been chosen to represent our city in that process, one which requires that individual to make a presentation on behalf of a candidate. Dale was proud of this but also uncharacteristically nervous. This was his moment, too. He wanted to shine just as Troy had always shined. He wanted to be up to it.
He was. Nailed it. Crushed it, actually.
When it was done and the candidates/honorees were now welcomed into the room, after Troy had completed the standard shaking of hands, he sought out Dale and asked if he needed anything one-on-one. Which Mr. Competitive wasn't about to pass up.
Crushed that, too. The resulting exclusive interview remains, as Dale was often reminding me, the most-read article of any kind in the history of our site, with more than 300,000 views.
Fortunately, a colleague from another city, sharp enough to sense what was happening, captured that moment with this photo:
FOR DKPS
Uh-huh. Look at him.
He called me from out there. Right out of the room. I'd never heard him like that. Like a child who'd literally belted a ball over the fence. He'd send me that pic, too.
He made it.
And then, to go on to the job of his dreams when the opportunity arose in 2022 and work for/with the Steelers while always maintaining his journalistic principles, while still approaching the job in a bulldog way and still writing about the team right through a handful of days ago, no matter how often I'd urged him to not worry about work right down to our final text exchange over the weekend ... yeah, he made it.
You made it, my brother. You made it.
And my God, you'll be missed. By so many of us ...
MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
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