Provided
Mike Downey was one of my sportswriting heroes.
My first job out of college was at Star Publications in the south suburbs, where he had worked years before. By that time, 1983, he was an extremely popular columnist at the Detroit Free Press. I’d go back and read Mike’s coverage of high school sports at the Star with a combination of awe and despair. Awe because he’d been a fully formed wordsmith at a young age and despair because I wasn’t.
By the time I worked up the nerve to write him a letter and send him some of my work, he was a columnist at the Los Angeles Times.