I rarely read sports news and never read articles about sports writers, but I just read this AP story about the late Terry Taylor, a woman I'd never heard of. Maybe I read it because I liked the smiling face in the photo, or maybe because I'm just a year older than the woman in that photo. When I did read it, something in the way the article was written touched me:
“'You had to work alongside her to appreciate how many barriers she knocked over day after day, and she did it with joy and plenty of humor, but nobody had sharper elbows,' said Jim Litke, an AP reporter from 1978 to 2022 and a national sports columnist starting in 1989. 'Whether it was wrangling a generator from a hotel manager in San Francisco the night an earthquake rocked the World Series, or walking into the chairman’s office at Augusta National to deliver her point in person, Terry never stopped trying to make every story she touched better. She dared us to follow her lead, to push and pull at every loose thread, and made all of us better reporters and even better people in the bargain.'”
What a fabulous compliment to pay someone: she made us better people.