Attending San José State opened my eyes and fortified my desire to become an ink-stained wretch. As Spartan Daily's sports editor for two semesters, I was able to cover the good and the bad on the SJSU scene while living in an apartment on 2nd Street with students Tom and Dick Smothers next door.
It wasn't all fun and games. I was covering a football game against Washington State at Spartan Stadium in 1960 on the night the airplane carrying the Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo football team crashed outside Toledo, Ohio, killing 18.
Then, SJSU Olympian Harry Campbell died from blows suffered in a 1961 boxing match in San Francisco. I also remember a game in which Spartan center Harry Edwards, the prominent sociologist, collapsed, ending his basketball career.
Those tragedies emphasized the dark side of sports, but they didn't discourage me from embarking on a satisfying sportswriting career.
Two events remain etched in my memory: SJSU's 34-20 football upset over host Stanford in 1960 and the 1960 U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials at the Cow Palace -- a big event because SJSU's Julie Menendez was the U.S. coach and the world caught the first glimpse of a brash heavyweight named Cassius Clay.
Those experiences made me yearn to follow the sports scene, and the Bay Area offered an enticing mix. I received my first paycheck as a stringer for the Mercury News, covering prep football in the era of Craig Morton and Bob Berry, who became quarterbacks in the NFL.
Upon graduation, I was hired by The Chronicle, where I impatiently wrote headlines. Shortly thereafter, I found myself part of a threemember sports staff team at The Berkeley Daily Gazette, doing everything my energy would allow. Within three years, I was sports editor.
It was great to be involved with Bay Area sports -- the Giants brought major league baseball, the Raiders were born in 1960, the Warriors followed in 1963, the A's came in '68, the 49ers were exciting, and Cal and USF were among basketball's elite.
My joyride was briefly interrupted by an Army stint, where I was twice named Alaska Sportswriter of the Year while working on the base weekly. That recognition reinforced the confidence that had been nurtured at SJSU, where I was California Collegiate Sportswriter of the Year in 1960.
-- Nick Peters, '61
Guest writer Nick Peters was inducted into The National Baseball Hall of Fame in July. He is the 60th journalist, and only the fifth West Coast sportswriter, to receive the annual J.G. Taylor Spink Award.
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