Schaap dead at 67

Broadcaster dies from complications with hip replacement

Dick Schaap authored more than 30 books. AP

NEW YORK (CNNSI.com) -- Dick Schaap, who helped usher in a new era of sportswriting and went on to become an award-winning journalist and author, died Friday from postoperative complications following hip replacement surgery. He was 67.

Schaap won two sports Emmy awards for his work on ESPN and three Emmy Awards for features on ABC's "20/20" and ABC's "World News Tonight."

But it was his early newspaper work in New York that shaped his reputation as a hard-working, liberal but fair reporter. He would go on to forge close relationships with many luminaries from the sports world, including Muhammad Ali, Bob Knight and Joe Namath.

Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin was an editor at the Nassau Star Review when he gave a part-time job to a 15-years-old student from Freeport High School on Long Island.

"He could write a straight sentence, which nobody still can do," Breslin told CNN. "I used to cry when he went home. His father picked him up at midnight, and I was stuck with this sports copy that you couldn't read and you went crazy trying to put in order."

Schaap went to Cornell University and then to study journalism at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York.

"He was one of the new journalists in sportswriting, who put a great premium on fine writing," said Cornell classmate Stuart Loory, who became a longtime friend. "He was always a good reporter, also."

Schaap took a job at Newsweek and then went to the New York Herald Tribune, where he was a city editor and then a columnist until the paper folded in 1966.

Schaap's strength, in addition to a prodigious appetite for work and painstaking attention to detail, was his ability to spot trends, Breslin said. "He always could pick things out a little ahead of time."

He cited Schaap's friendship with the up-and-coming young fighter Cassius Clay. "He brought him to Harlem for the first time. Clay had never gone there, had never seen blacks where they weren't afraid and cowtowed. He took him to Harlem where they expressed themselves. It made a huge impression on Clay."

Schaap was host of ESPN's "Sports Reporters," and "The Sporting Life With Dick Schaap" on ESPN Radio. He also was host of "Schaap One on One" on ESPN Classic.

He also wrote more than 30 books, including "Instant Replay," the first of four collaborations with former Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer, which became a best seller when it was published in 1968.

An autobiography, "Flashing Before My Eyes," was published earlier this year.

He received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Journalism from the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America in 2001. He won the Northeastern Award for Excellence in Broadcast Sports Journalism in 1986 and the Women's Sports Foundation award for excellence in covering women's sports in 1984.

He is survived by his wife, Trish, and six children, including ESPN reporter Jeremy Schaap.

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