Peterson: Beloved, respected colleague dies on the job

Earlier this summer, when I turned 59, Deb was in a somber mood.

She reminded me that the next time one of us had a birthday, we’d officially be in our 60s. It’s a decade, she said, where unforeseen things start to happen.

“There’s more loss,” she said. “You just start hearing more bad news that you don’t expect when you start getting into the 60s.”

Friday was one of those days.

The first thing I read at breakfast when I logged on to Twitter was a message from a former classmate at the University of Iowa who is editor at the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier. Nancy Newhoff wrote: "With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of Jim Sullivan overnight of heart attack; great man, writer, friend."

Nausea soon replaced the hunger I felt a minute earlier.

Deb’s comments really hit home at that moment. As well as something else she once told me about my CNA work schedule. A few years earlier, when Matt Pfiffner was sports editor of the News Advertiser and Osceola Sentinel-Tribune, I spent many nights alone in the CNA office until 2 a.m. or later. Matt lived in Osceola and we often talked remotely in finishing the sports section as he stayed there unless there was a reason for him to be in Creston.

“They’re going to come in some morning and find you dead at your desk if you don’t take care of yourself,” Deb warned.

Considering my father and grandfather had their first strokes or heart attacks in their 60s, that wasn’t a huge stretch.

Stricken at work

Well, as it turns out, Sullivan was the last one working at the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier late Thursday night (actually early Friday morning). He died from a heart attack suffered right after putting the finishing touches on Friday’s sports pages.

There’s some honor in going out doing the work he did so well for so many years. But not at 61! Certainly that’s robbing wife Kim and son Pete of many more years together. As well as all of us who knew him.

His work may not be familiar to people in southwest Iowa. But, I’ll just say this, everything people have been saying since Friday about Sully as a professional and a person is what we all aspire to have as a legacy.

When I left Creston for awhile and worked at the Mason City Globe-Gazette, I met Sullivan at several events, including an Iowa vs. UNI men’s basketball game at the UNI-Dome. My 1980s Radio Shack portable keyboard computer, the infamous TRS-80, was malfunctioning.

Sullivan didn’t know me from Adam at the time. But he saw my dilemma and helped me get my story on his unit and sent to the Globe before deadline.

Later, we’d see each other at state track or state baseball and if our mutual friend Bob Fenske, a former Globe colleague, was also in the house we shared many a laugh. Nobody had a quicker wit than Sully. His best jabs were usually poked at his favorite teams — the Minnesota Vikings and Twins.

Do you have someone in your life that makes you smile every time you see them? Someone you just know is going to have a fun conversation with you? That was Sully.

He didn’t take himself too seriously; but he took his work seriously. Is there a better way to go through life?

Upon hearing the news, J.T. Linder of the Cedar Rapids Gazette was crestfallen.

“This business is a fraternity,” he said on Twitter. “We see each other more than our families some weeks. It’s like a piece of family is gone.”

Kevin White of the Omaha World-Herald put it perfectly: “The sportswriting profession today isn’t as professional or clever as it was yesterday.”

Tommy Birch of the Des Moines Register said Sullivan was a friend to anyone he came across.

His boss, Courier sports editor Doug Newhoff, worked alongside him for 32 years. He said Sullivan never turned down an assignment. It wasn’t beneath him to write a feature about a rising table tennis star or archery competitor, the day before covering Iowa State against Kansas in basketball. I always admired his versatility.

Trusted pro

The hardest part of our profession is asking the tough questions we sometimes have to address with coaches or administrators. You hope you’ve built up enough trust that they feel comfortable in responding.

“Jim did it in a very professional way, and more like a polite friend,” UNI football coach Mark Farley told the Courier last weekend. “You felt good about how he said things and how he presented things. He made you feel calm, and you could trust him. It takes a special kind of person to do that.”

A former Waterloo athlete wrote on Twitter that he was bawling like a kid upon hearing the news, because Sully told their stories and you could tell he enjoyed doing it. When I read that, I realized our work really does matter to people.

Sullivan always managed to keep things in perspective at sporting events. His passing did that for me as well.

As much as I enjoyed 35 years of full-time newspaper work, mostly on the exhausting sports beat, I took Deb’s warning to heart and dropped to part-time earlier this year. It’s a young person’s game. I have a grandchild and hopefully more to come to enjoy for a while yet.

But if I help out at state track again, I don’t think I’ll be able to glance over toward the high jump pit at Drake Stadium and not recall those laughs and good times shared with Sully as we waited to interview athletes from our schools.

Those were some of the best days of my career. R.I.P. my friend.

Contact the writer:

Twitter: @larrypeterson

Email: lpeterson@crestonnews.com