Bryan Burwell's voice in sports world will be missed
Known for his passionate writing style, insight into sports and athletes and his friendly, caring nature, sports columnist Bryan Burwell, who wrote for Paste BN in the 1990s, died on Thursday. He was 59.
Burwell was diagnosed with cancer in October and wanted to keep his illness private, according to stories in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he had worked since 2002.
Longtime friends and former colleagues were saddened and shocked by the news. ESPN's Michael Wilbon posted a tribute on Facebook titled "Farewell to my Friend."
"Today is awful because Bryan died this morning, of cancer … didn't even reach 60 years old. It's going to be too quiet out there without Bryan's voice, too quiet in St. Louis particularly where he lived and worked for the last dozen years or so … too quiet on the airwaves, too quiet on the voice mails of those of us who knew him for, yes, decades … the people who sparred with and confided in each other during Bryan's 35-plus years writing and talking about sports and life.
"Today is awful because Dawn lost her husband and because Victoria lost her father, because so many of us lost a dear friend."
Post-Dispatch columnist and Burwell colleague Bernie Miklasz wrote a touching and heartfelt column about his friend Thursday.
"Now that Bryan is gone, the press box will never be as warm again. It will be a much quieter place," Miklasz wrote. "I'm headed to Atlanta for the SEC Championship, and I'd give anything to sit next to him one more time. During Saturday's game I'll probably close my eyes, and hope to hear that famous, wondrous Burwell laughter. This is impossible, and this is cruel, and this is crushing. But I do know this: The familiar echo of that sweet, soul-replenishing laughter will always live in our hearts. He'll never really leave us."
More tributes poured in on Facebook and Twitter — from both those who knew him and those who didn't.
Even though he was one of the nation's best sports columnist — in 2007 the Associated Press Sports Editors honored him as one of top 10 columnists in the nation — he was never too big to talk to an aspiring journalist or a clerk on the agate desk.
Burwell also wrote for The Washington Star, The Detroit News and New York's Newsday and Daily News. He excelled on TV, appearing on ESPN's The Sports Reporters and HBO's Real Sports. ESPN's Adam Schefter on Twitter astutely noted, "Burwell was good enough on TV to make people forget he was a writer, and a good enough writer to make people forget he was on TV."
It's the ultimate compliment in today's journalistic landscape where reporters and columnists are expected to provide excellent coverage on a variety of platforms. Burwell did it with aplomb.
But writing words for print and the web had a special place in Burwell's heart. When he returned to newspapers in 2002, Burwell wrote, "I left the sports writing business and became a full-time, pampered, TV talking head. But even as the voice got deeper, the suits got fancier, the expense account just a little heftier, and the hotels and plane tickets went five-star and first-class, deep down inside, I was still just another ink-stained wretch looking for a free meal and another game to cover."
He was a prominent and thoughtful voice for The Detroit News on the Pistons' Bad Boys teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s and became a prominent national voice when he joined Paste BN — just before the Internet made journalists and their stories accessible almost anywhere the world.
Burwell loved writing about football and basketball — a constant figure at NBA and NFL playoff games — and golf, track and field (he attended Virginia State on a track scholarship) and boxing, too. Burwell was often at his best when writing about basketball.
He carefully selected his words and crafted his sentences and wasn't afraid to tackle complex topics, such as race, religion, or powerful people.
In 1996, he wrote about NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf who was suspended for refusing to stand during The Star-Spangled Banner. Burwell talked to Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton for the story.
"What 20 years have done is simply alter the shell. The old revolutionary looks a bit different now," Burwell wrote. "The scraggly beard, raggedy jeans and slogan-emblazoned T-shirts have long ago been replaced by a clean-shaven face and a slick, expensive blazer.
"But the soul is unchanged. Bill Walton still values the voice of dissent.
"The news of the NBA's indefinite suspension of Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf for his refusal to stand for the national anthem at NBA games based on religious reasons touched Walton at many levels Wednesday. "What's that old saying they used to tell us? You know, `Don't mix politics and sports . . . particularly if it's the wrong politics,' " Walton said, laughing."
Burwell is survived by his wife, Dawn, and daughter, Victoria.