Four sportswriters, one small town

Atlanta, Ill. sportswriters (from left) Kevin Hieronymus, Dave Kindred, Randy Kindred and Kip Cheek.

My little home town, Atlanta, Ill., is known for a lot of things.

It’s Route 66 attractions.

Smiley face water tower.

Paul Bunyon statue.

Historic, octagon-shaped library.

And, to a lesser known degree, sports writers.

Our little hometown of 1,600-plus has produced, of all things, four sportswriters - Dave Kindred, Randy Kindred, my longtime pal Kip Cheek and yours truly.

Recently, all four of us got together for the first time back in Atlanta, to share our life-work’s experiences and affection for our hometown.

Together, we counted up we have 186-years of experience between us, Dave leading the way with 62.

Randy summed it up best saying we’ve all spent half of our lives waiting outside locker rooms for coaches and athletes for interviews. The other half, he said, for him personally, is trying to find where the Manwich cans are at the grocery store.

I’ve had a few folks tell me I should write about us, so here’s our story.

The heavy hitter in the lineup is Dave. He’s the Babe Ruth of sportswriters, nationally renown having written for the Louisville Courier, Washington Post and Atlanta Constitution, that’s Atlanta, Ga., in which our hometown was named after. If there’s been a major sporting event over the past six decades, from Super Bowls, World Series, U.S. Opens, Dave’s covered it.

Once when interviewing a young Muhamed Ali, then Cassius Clay, in his hotel room, the iconic boxer told Dave to get under the covers with him in bed so they could escape the commotion of his entourage around them. Dave jokes, “Only one of us had clothes on and it wasn’t me.”

When I first got started out in the business, Dave was writing a weekly column in the Sporting News and I couldn’t wait each week for my copy to arrive to read his column. I was in awe knowing he was from my hometown.

Retired, back in central Illinois, Dave has been writing about the Morton Potters girls basketball team (four-time state champion), all for the lump salary of a box of Milk Duds per game (he’s a professional after all). He finished his book (one of many) sharing the story of his grandson, Jared, and his addictions that cost him his life, entitled, “Leave out the Tragic Parts,” and its a must read.

Dave’s life story was recently featured on a 60 Minutes, filmed on location in downtown Atlanta.

Randy retired as sports editor of the Bloomington Pantagraph a year ago in March, but continues to spin bi-weekly columns (44 years with a byline) with a personal touch of the lives of the people in sports from the Twin Cites in a way only he can tell. He was recognized last year as being the best sports columnist in Illinois for daily papers.

Kip, who grew up just down the alley from my house, has been covering sports for the Mendota Reporter since 1984. He can cite Mendota sports history like a drop of a hat. He is the one who tipped me off about the opening at the BCR.

Me, I’ve been at the BCR 35 years with brief stops in Morton and St. Louis.

Atlanta was the perfect place for a young lad to fall in love with sports. There wasn’t a day that Kip and I weren’t playing some kind of game with the neighborhood gang. Randy, who is three years older, organized pick-up baseball games at his barn-yard diamond and streams of kids on bicycles would race through town to get there after his call. Randy said he had a rolodex of phone numbers all in his head.

For us, younger kids, it was like getting called up to the big leagues.

Dave, who is 17 years older than Randy, and 20 than Kip and I, was point guard for the hometown Atlanta’s Redwings 1959 undefeated regional champion basketball team, which defeated neighboring giant Lincoln. He went on to play baseball for Illinois Wesleyan University.

Randy, Kip and I all played ball for the newly-formed Olympia High School two decades later.

So, how did we all become sports writers? When our games quit, we all turned to the next best thing, writing about them.

“We were all would-be athletes who combined that passion/ambition and reporting/writing instincts to create a life’s work,” Dave said. “I loved reading, writing and baseball, and the more reading I did, the more I wanted to write. Often hearing ‘write what you know,’ I knew sports, so I started there, and for the most part stayed there.”

“I think a common thread is we all played sports growing up,” said Randy, who is not (closely) related to Dave even in a small town like Atlanta. “We saw firsthand the value of being on a team. Writing about sports was a way we could all stay around athletes and teams.”

Kip shared my dream of being a professional baseball player, and when he knew his playing days were over after high school, he said sportswriting was his “way of becoming a professional” in all kinds of sports.

“I became a sports writer, because I wanted to have a way to stay around the games because of my love of sports,” he said. “I knew I didn’t want to be a coach, so this was the way I found to continue my association with sports, and I get paid for doing something I love.”

Randy adds, like me, that Dave was a big inspiration to him and “made me want to pursue a career in sports writing.”

Dave said it best on 60 Minutes that “Writers Write.”

That’s what we do. Some towns may produce teachers, doctors or plumbers. Atlanta grows sports writers.

Now about that Manwich. Randy sent me a follow-up text and picture a couple weeks after our get-together, that his wife had indeed found a wealthy supply that should stock them up for awhile.

We have already made plans to get together again next year, perhaps trying to lose some golf balls on at the Atlanta golf course. If Randy brings the Manwich, we’ll be in good shape, because all sports writers are used to having a good hospitality room.

Kevin Hieronymus has been sports editor at the BCR since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com.