NEW YORK (AP) – Terry R. Taylor, the Associated Press’ first female sports editor who led the station from 1992 to 2013, died Tuesday. She was 71 years old.
Ben Walker, a retired Associated Press sportswriter, worked with Taylor throughout his tenure. This is what he remembers.
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She came flying into the office like a comet. Soon, everyone was sitting straight at their desks, fingers on the keyboards. Suddenly, AP Sports time started before Terry Taylor could bark, “What’s cooking?”
It was a quiet Tuesday morning with nothing going on.
She was popularly known as TRT. These were her initials, but few knew that her middle name was Rosalind. However, TNT was more accurate. She’s 5 feet tall and nothing, weighs 100 pounds, and wow, can she bark? She was a dynamic influence in the world of journalism, becoming the first female sports editor at The Associated Press at a time when women were rare in the press box and in such positions of power.
She remembers her first visit to Fenway Park in the early ’90s when she was leading a conference of sports media executives in Boston. Before the game, as we stood behind the batting cage, an older guard motioned to me. He came closer and whispered, “You know she’s not allowed on the field right now, right?” But TRT heard him. Without missing a beat, she said matter-of-factly, “Oh, I thought I’d go take some batting practice.”
In fact, she wanted to be at the center of everything when it came to AP wire.
I’ve worked with Terry for over 30 years and she always wanted to bring big stories to the screen…the Super Bowl in its final moments, the Tiger Woods scandal, the MLB strike. Such. Instead of just making casual suggestions, you’ll have to actually edit her line by line as events unfold. Watching her in action was so exciting, she was always connected to a power source and often at least her 6 days a week at the office and close to the phone, so she was at home rather than in bed. I often slept on the couch. case.
What’s also funny about her is that when she completely rewrote the story and it got a lot of coverage in the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, Terry gave the writer full props. If her superiors criticized a story she covered, she took full responsibility for it. I can’t remember her ever taking credit for anything…well, maybe she gave her wife Ginger and me meatballs at Patsy’s, the restaurant across the street from her apartment in New York City. I may have suggested you take a look.
We lived two houses down from her, both on the top floor. Once, in the early 80’s, I went down over the roof to see her at night after her night shift. She made the best omelettes, we drank red rose tea and we stayed up until 4am with her talking about business and how to get better.
Not that she needed much in that area. When I first worked with her at the Associated Press bureau in her hometown of Philadelphia in 1981, our office covered Agate, a goal scorer, penalties, shots, etc. for the Hershey Bears, a minor league hockey team. . After each period, someone would call from the arena with information and TRT would input that information. She insisted on doing it herself. Because it goes directly to the national sports bureau and they wanted it to be accurate.
Hershey’s star player at the time was Lou Franceschetti. Every time TRT picked up Agate, she had the Bears’ media guide in her lap. And each time, she double-checked his name. She said to me, “Yes, I know how to spell it, but I wanted to make sure.”
When TRT retired in 2013, I sought out Lou Franceschetti and told him his story. He playfully signed her a glossy photo and said, “Thank you for always spelling my name correctly.” she barked!
A few years later, a young writer from Houston stopped me at the World Series in Philadelphia and said he had heard that I was working closely with TRT and wanted to ask him a question.
“I heard about Terry Taylor…” he began, rolling his eyes, and I politely stopped him. I just said: “Whatever you’ve heard, it’s true. She was the most this, she was the most that, she was the most everything.”
I have never seen someone work harder, work longer, care more, or command more respect. Or even more fear-mongering.
Many Associated Press reporters continue to cringe at the echo of her warning, “That leash could strangle the horse!” Or “ent-ent” in her characteristic disdain. If you’ve heard this, you’ll never forget it and still imitate it. But those same writers have preserved her notes of praise for decades…a simple “That’s nice” might cheer you up for a month.
When I think of TRT, I always think of volume. Her work, her impact, her influence, and of course her voice. She also remembers a special night at the old Yankee Stadium, which she loved.
It was around 3 a.m. after the Yankees’ 12-inning victory over Arizona in Game 5 of the 2001 World Series. We were the last ones out of the press box…I wrote the main lead and TRT did the editing. As we walked, I wondered if she had ever visited Monument Park, and she said no. So I asked the security guard and he said go ahead.
The stadium was silent and the lights half dimmed as cleaning crews cleaned the stands. We wandered alone, past nameplates of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, and more. She read the inscription quietly and said, “There are certainly many great people here.”
I remember thinking, yes, TRT. I was standing next to one of them.
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AP Sports: https://apnews.com/sports