The St. Louis area and the sports world lost a national treasure last week when St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell passed away after a short bout with cancer. He was 59.
Bryan was the total package. He was a brilliant writer, as well as a tremendous communicator through the radio and television airwaves. He was also a great person who was well respected by friends, colleagues and adversaries alike.
I’m truly heartbroken over Bryan’s passing because not only did I lose a good friend, I lost a great role model. As a young African American who loves sports journalism, there were people in life that I followed and said to myself, “I really like him and one day I want to do what he does.” Bryan was one of those special individuals.
When I was a child living in Milwaukee, that person was the late Larry Whiteside, a Hall of Fame baseball writer who wrote for the Milwaukee Journal. He was a neighbor. During my high school-age years while living here in St. Louis, I followed the late Morris Henderson and Richard “Onion” Horton, who both wrote for The St. Louis American, as well as future colleague Mike Claiborne, who I listened to all the time on KMOX radio. Charlie Tuna was also another voice that I listened to all the time.
During my time in college, as well my early days in the journalism business, I really became attached to the work of Bryan Burwell, Michael Wilbon and the late Ralph Wiley on the national scene. These men were brilliant and larger than life to me. As more writers became fixtures on television, it became easy for me to follow these talented men on a regular basis. Bryan was always on point, yet he was so cool and distinguished in his presentation.
I was truly excited on the day it was announced that Bryan was coming to St. Louis to write for the Post-Dispatch. It is one thing to admire someone from afar, but it was truly a blessing to be able to sit down and talk sports with someone you have followed and idolized for so many years. And to become his friend in the process. It’s priceless. I was so glad to be able to tell him what a big impact he had made in my career. Now, I am so thankful that I did.
I will always treasure those times we spent together in New York when Bryan came to follow Saint Louis University during the Atlantic 10 Tournament. We got a chance to hang out, eat dinner and just talk basketball with another hoops junkie. He covered the Knicks while in New York, the Bullets during his time in Washington, D.C. and the Pistons while in Detroit.
I loved listening to his stories about Hubie Brown and the Knicks and the Bad Boys, whom he covered while in Detroit. While in D.C., he got to know my uncle Wes Unseld, really well as well as former Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson. We shared so many memories about the Bullets and the Hoyas during the days when the old Big East Conference was in its glory. Just listening to him tell story after story of his old experiences was captivating.
We are all saddened and heartbroken to lose someone like Bryan Burwell so soon, but heaven picked up one of the most gifted sports communicators or our generation last week.
He will be sorely missed.
