A baseball Hall-of-Fame writer, an NCAA exec., a legendary sportscaster, a NASCAR tech., a championship basketball guard, an Olympic hopeful, and a dead surfer update.

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Famed baseball writer Jerome Holtzman dies at 81

CHICAGO (AP) — Jerome Holtzman, a longtime baseball writer who made the Hall of Fame, created the saves rule and later became Major League Baseball’s official historian, has died. He was 81.

Holtzman died Saturday in Evanston.

“As a baseball writer, columnist and historian for more than 50 years, Jerome Holtzman was a beloved figure and made an incredible impact on the game,” Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday in a statement.

Holtzman won the J.G. Spink Award and a spot in the Hall of Fame in 1989. The award is given annually to the one baseball writer who has exhibited “meritorious contributions” to baseball writing.

Known as “The Dean,” Holtzman worked at the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Times, its predecessor, before joining the Chicago Tribune in 1981. He retired in 1999, when Selig named him MLB’s official historian.

Holtzman began his career as a 17-year-old copy boy in 1942, and served two years in the Marine Corps during World War II before returning to journalism. He was assigned the baseball beat in 1957.

“He was amazing baseball people, I don’t just want to say writer. He was a baseball fan. He did a lot of things for baseball,” said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who was a Sox player during Holtzman’s time at the Tribune. “He gave his life to baseball and we’ll always remember how great he was.

“Jerome was a classy man and a great man to have around. I was lucky enough to be covered by him for a few years.”

Feeling that earned run averages and won-lost records were not the most accurate reflection of relievers’ effectiveness, Holtzman created the formula for “saves” in 1959. A decade later, in 1969, it was adopted by the game’s Official Rules Committee.

“In the case of Jerome, every one of the closers over the last 30 years … should take out their checkbooks and write a gigantic check to whatever foundation or charity the family directs,” broadcaster and former White Sox pitcher Steve Stone said. “He’s really the person responsible for being able to quantify what has become one of the most important positions on the field.”

White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said baseball “lost a great advocate and fan … and I lost a dear friend.

“I will miss his visits to the ballpark and his phone calls during the season to discuss the latest baseball news,” he said.

Holtzman also wrote six books, including “No Cheering in the Press Box,” in which he interviewed other well-known writers.

Holtzman is survived by his wife, Marilyn; two daughters, Alice Barnett of California, and Janet Holtzman of Wilmette, Ill.; a son, Jack Merrill of Los Angeles; and five grandchildren.

The funeral will be private and a memorial service will be held later, the White Sox said.

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Former NCAA executive Dave Cawood dies

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — David E. Cawood, a former high-ranking NCAA executive who helped run the Final Four for more than two decades, died Sunday at his home in Louisville. He was 64.

Cawood had just finished his morning run and complained to his wife that he was not feeling well; he then collapsed and was rushed to a hospital, where resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful, according to the NCAA Web site.

From 1975 to 1997, his NCAA responsibilities included the coordination of media and marketing for the men’s Final Four. In that role, he helped negotiate the first $1 billion rights fee for a sporting event with CBS, and the subsequent $1.725 billion agreement.

“Dave was a very dedicated and talented individual,” said Thomas W. Jernstedt, NCAA executive vice president. “He also possessed a great knowledge of the association, and he could explain complicated concepts effectively, often using his great sense of humor.”

Cawood, a native of Harlan, was a first cousin of the late Cawood Ledford, the legendary radio voice of the Kentucky Wildcats.

Before joining the NCAA as director of public relations in 1974, Cawood was a sports information director at Morehead State, Eastern Kentucky, Baylor, his alma mater, Southern Methodist and Arkansas.

Cawood was a member of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Hall of Fame and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame.

After leaving the NCAA in 1997, he joined Host Communications, an association management and athletics marketing company.
During his tenure at Host, he served as executive vice president of NCAA Football.

In April 2007, Cawood became president of FSA Group, an association management firm.

Cawood was a member of the board of directors of the Harlan Independent Schools Foundation.

He is survived by his wife, Sheila; a son, Jeff; and a brother.

Funeral services are scheduled for Wednesday in Harlan.

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Legendary black sportscaster Maxwell dies at 100

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — Sherman “Jocko” Maxwell, the pioneering black sportscaster who chronicled Negro league baseball players before the racial barrier fell, has died. He was 100.

Maxwell died July 16 at Chester County Hospital in suburban Philadelphia after battling pneumonia, according to his son, Bruce Maxwell.

Supporting himself with a post office job during the day, Sherman Maxwell worked at night as a sportscaster. He was a prolific writer, submitting stories to the Ledger in Newark, N.J., the predecessor of The Star-Ledger, on games played by the Newark Eagles.

“His life was nothing but sports,” Bruce Maxwell said. “He read about sports; he listened to sports; he talked sports.”

Maxwell began his broadcasting career in 1929, doing a five-minute weekly sports report on WNJR in Newark at age 22. He went on to broadcast on other stations in northern New Jersey and eventually became the announcer for Sunday afternoon Newark Eagles games. His broadcasting career ended in 1967.

Maxwell also founded and managed the Newark Starlings, a semipro, mixed-race team.

His love of baseball was so strong that he intentionally failed exams as a high school senior so that he could play another season, said his sister, Bernice Maxwell Cross.

“Our parents bought him a new suit because he should be graduating,” she said. “They had a fit.”

Cross said radio stations never paid her brother. He was instead motivated by his love of the games he got to see.

“If you weren’t talking about sports, he didn’t know what to talk about,” she said.

Maxwell, a 1994 inductee into the Newark Athletic Hall of Fame, was preceded in death by his wife, Mamie, and a daughter, Lisa.

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NASCAR technical director Peterson dies at 58

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Steve Peterson, NASCAR’s technical director who spent 13 years helping make the circuit safer for drivers, was found dead in his home in Concord, N.C., July 15. He was 58.

The cause of death was not disclosed, but NASCAR said in a statement it appeared to be of natural causes.

Peterson joined NASCAR in 1995 and spearheaded several safety initiatives, including installation of the SAFER Barriers and the implementation of safety features in the Car of Tomorrow. He also helped the circuit get approval for head and neck restraints and improved seat belts.

Peterson won the 2006 Society of Automotive Engineers Motorsports Achievement Award. He previously served as crew chief for Sprint Cup Series driver Mark Martin in 1982.

NASCAR chairman and chief executive Brian France said Peterson’s efforts will benefit NASCAR drivers for generations to come.

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San Francisco Hall of Famer DeJulio dies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hal DeJulio, who played on Pete Newell’s 1949 NIT championship team at the University of San Francisco, has died. He was 83.

The school said the USF Hall of Famer died July 12. While he was a role player for the Dons in the late 1940s for Newell, DeJulio worked closely hosting recruits and selling the school to potential student-athletes. In fact, DeJulio’s hard work is considered one of the key reasons Bill Russell came to USF.

In a feature in the 1972-73 media guide, DeJulio explained why the university meant so much to him.

“I guess you call it the human equation,” DeJulio said then. “By that I mean the feeling of closeness shared by everyone affiliated with the university: priests, lay faculty, students, coaches, athletes, everybody. The great values of life that I received from USF are what have kept me close. The human equation.”

He was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1975.

DeJulio, a prep star in nearby Richmond, was born Oct. 2, 1924.

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Without Ryan and Alicia Shay at Olympic trials, hearts are heavy

By Jo-Ann Barnas
Detroit Free Press

EUGENE, Ore. — The second stage of their Olympic journey was to have continued here, 20 minutes after sunset, amid the towering pines near Hayward Field, with his wife at the starting line and Ryan Shay positioned somewhere close, following every stride.

“We talked about it many times before the marathon in New York,” Joe Vigil said. “He said, ’Coach, if I don’t make it to the Olympics, I’m going to do everything I can to see that Alicia makes it.”’

Almost eight months have passed since Ryan Shay died.

The last time Alicia Shay saw her husband alive, he was running. She caught a glimpse of him during the early stages of the U.S. Olympic men’s marathon trials Nov. 3 before he collapsed and died 5-1/2 miles into the race. Ryan and Alicia had been married just four months. He was 28 and died of sudden cardiac arrest.

For those who knew and loved him, life hasn’t been the same.

Shay’s mother, Susan, makes almost daily pilgrimages to Dunsmore Cemetery near Central Lake, where Ryan — the fifth of her eight children — became a star runner in high school. He won 11 track and cross-country state titles before becoming a nine-time All-America at Notre Dame.

At the Central Lake Invitational in early May, Joe Shay, Ryan’s father, was moved to tears when the track team from Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart arrived at the meet wearing T-shirts with his son’s name on the front, next to a big red heart. The back was inscribed with Ryan’s date of birth and death: May 4, 1979 — Nov. 3, 2007.

“The hardest part is when people look at you, and you can see the hurt in their eyes,” Joe Shay said. “You want to comfort them, and you don’t know how to do it.”

Injury on top of grief

Alicia Shay is not running Friday night.

The 10-day U.S. Olympic track and field trials, the selection meet for the Beijing Games, starts today at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon — the fabled home track of the late Steve Prefontaine, who, like Ryan Shay, died in the prime of his running career.

Prefontaine, a 1972 Olympian who once held the American record in five track events from the 2,000 meters through the 10,000, was killed in a car accident east of the Oregon campus in 1975. He was 24.

“Ryan did resemble him in many ways,” said Vigil (pronounced Vee-hill), who coached Shay after he graduated from Notre Dame in 2002. “He was strong-minded about things, like Prefontaine was. But there were a lot of differences between the two as well.

“You know, hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about Ryan. I worked with him for six years. He was like my son. His enthusiasm for Alicia’s running was just as great as his enthusiasm for his running.”

Alicia Shay had a qualifying time to join the field on Friday night in her specialty event, the women’s 10,000 meters. But she elected two weeks ago not to enter the trials.

Her coach, Jack Daniels, of the Center for High Altitude Training in Flagstaff, Ariz., told the Arizona Republic that Alicia has not completely recovered from an injury to a stomach muscle suffered in May, when she chased her puppy down the driveway to keep it from going into the road.

The injury caused her to pull out of the Cardinal Invitational on May 4 in Stanford, Calif. The race would have been her first since Ryan’s death, and on his birthday.

Her mother, Sally Craig, said Wednesday that Alicia, 26, has been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue — a health disorder often brought on by physical or emotional stress.

A year ago, Craig rented two homes near Hayward Field for the duration of the trials for Alicia, Ryan and their running teammates in Flagstaff. Craig and her husband have decided to go ahead with their plans and host the runners even though their daughter isn’t competing. They arrived in Eugene on Wednesday night — without Alicia.

Because of her health, Alicia decided last weekend to stay in Arizona, where she recently moved into a new home “in the country,” Sally Craig said.

“At first, we hoped she would join us” to watch the meet, Craig said. “But the quicker she recovers, the faster she’ll be able to come back. Between her doctor and her trainer, they want her to get as much rest as possible.”

Alicia Shay was one of the nation’s leading female distance runners when she married Ryan in her home state of Wyoming last July 7. She was a two-time NCAA champion in the 10,000 meters for Stanford.

She finished fourth in the 10,000 at last year’s USATF outdoor nationals in Indianapolis. Four years ago, she was fifth at the U.S. Olympic trials for the Athens Games.

Though they didn’t know each other then, Ryan Shay also was at those trials in Sacramento, Calif., and finished 10th in the 10,000 meters.

Before Ryan died, Joe Shay said his son had been looking forward to returning to Hayward Field for Friday night’s start of the trials — first, to cheer on Alicia, then to compete himself, in the men’s 10,000 meters.

In 2001, Shay became Notre Dame’s first NCAA champion in track and field when he won the outdoor 10,000-meter title at Hayward Field.

Brian Sell of the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project in Rochester Hills was there. At the time, he was a little-known collegiate runner at St. Francis in Pennsylvania. Shay, a Notre Dame senior, was seeded fourth but won the race by 20 seconds, in 29:05.44.

When Shay crossed the finish line, Sell had another lap to go.

“It was the last event of the day, maybe 8 o’clock or so, and the sun was going down as we were running,” recalled Sell, who won a spot on the U.S. men’s marathon team for the Beijing Olympics last November.

The two got to know each other that night under unusual circumstances: Both were pegged for drug testing, an NCAA formality for the winner and a random selection for Sell.

“And neither of us could go to the bathroom,” Sell recalled, laughing. “We were there until after midnight, drinking bottles of water and stuff.”

Sell admired Shay even then.

“At St. Francis, we kind of prided ourselves as being tough runners because we were up in the mountains of central Pennsylvania,” he said. “Basically, our winter workouts were sprinting up an ice-covered hill that was 500 meters long. Hearing some of the winter stories about Ryan, we kind of related to him more so than, like, the guys from Stanford that never had a day under 60 degrees.”

Running for Ryan

A one-mile road race dedicated to Shay, called the Ryan Shay Mile, will be held at 10:30 a.m. on July 26 in Charlevoix as part of the Venetian Festival Parade.

Joe and Susan Shay will attend as official starters.

They know that their son remains in the hearts and minds of so many people who knew him.

In late May, the couple attended the Traverse City Record-Eagle Honor Roll track meet and presented the inaugural Ryan Shay Memorial cups to the boy and girl winners of the 1,600 meters.

Earlier this week, Joe Shay drove Notre Dame sophomore Marissa Treece of Maple City, whom he’s coaching this summer, to the trails surrounding the Jordan River in the northwestern Lower Peninsula. She ran a peaceful 14 miles, she said.

“Not many people get to run where Ryan did,” Treece said.

Alicia Shay established the Ryan Shay Memorial Fund in April to honor her late husband’s passion for helping disadvantaged individuals. Saucony, which was Ryan’s shoe sponsor, is commemorating him with a new cross-country shoe, called the Shay XC. It also dedicated its new design center in his memory.

Alicia Shay’s family also will take a special trip in November. More than a dozen family members and friends will run in the New York City Marathon to honor Ryan. The city was special for Alicia and Ryan — they met at a party there after the 2005 marathon.

Alicia Shay doesn’t plan to run the New York race this fall, but she has promised to help coach the group and cheer them on, Sally Craig said.

“That’s positive — a lot of energy,” Sally Craig said.

Applications will be accepted until Monday for the Ryan Shay Mile on 10:30 a.m. July 26 in Charlevoix. The top 10 male and female runners will compete in the race.

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Mother of dead surfer sues 5 assailants, parents

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The mother of a professional surfer who was fatally beaten outside her home in an upscale San Diego neighborhood is suing the five young men accused of committing the crime.

The suit, filed Tuesday by Cynthia Kauanui (KOW’-ah-noo-ee), also seeks damages from several parents, whom she accuses of “parental malpractice” for allegedly failing to control their sons’ violent behavior.

Kauanui’s 24-year-old son Emery died in May 2007 from severe head trauma from a brawl that investigators say followed a dispute over a spilled drink at a nearby bar.

One of the men, Seth Cravens, faces trial on a murder charge. Four others have pleaded guilty to lesser charges.