One of the Best
In my short time in this business, I’ve heard many people refer to Steve McCloskey as “one of the best.” It’s always been hard to disagree, being as he was my mentor and has produced more sports information professionals in the last 10-years than any other SID I know. But it wasn’t until this past week that I truly realized how special Steve is.
One of the toughest things a person can deal with is family trauma, and the worst kind hit Steve last week when his son suffered a series of severe seizures. Zach, always a quiet and reserved boy, was hospitalized on Wednesday and put on medication to control the seizures.
What Steve did over the course of the next four days still has me in awe.
Steve has been the point person for the development of the Mansfield University sprint football team, an idea he intensely researched and presented to the school’s administration. Steve, like so many Mansfield alumni, couldn’t handle the thought of not having football at the school after a 2006 decision was made to drop the program.
After a one-year absence, football was scheduled to return to Karl Van Norman field on Saturday. It may not seem like a big deal, being as Mansfield is a tiny Division II school in the middle of the mountains in Pennsylvania, but the history of Mansfield football transcends the college ranks, dating back to 1892. Mansfield, then called the Mansfield State Normal School, played the first-ever night football game, hosting Wyoming Seminary under lights provided by the company that would become General Electric.
History was made at Mansfield in 1892 and McCloskey had set the school up to make history again.
With his son hospitalized and millions of questions circling in his mind, Steve managed to bring an onslaught of media attention to Mansfield that the school hadn’t seen in years.
Wondering why his son had been hit with seizures and what would happen with testing in the next few days, Steve still went to the office, and at the office he still accomplished more than many of us can in a day.
Friday, Mansfield appeared on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Not an inset piece that was lost in the middle, but on the front page. The Wall Street Journal’s Web site ran the article along with a video feature, where the writer attended practice and interviewed players, all set up by Steve.
His story hit the AP wire on Friday and newspapers and media outlets across the country ran the story of the tiny town that was standing up to fight adversity. What no one understood was the adversity McCloskey was fighting behind closed doors.
He found out that the seizures were being caused by a chemical misfiring in the frontal lobe of Zach’s brain. He and his wife, Pam, also had to deal with the news that the only thing they can do for now is medicate the problem in hopes that Zach would be able to outgrow the complication in the next few years.
Dealing with the image of his hospitalized son, Steve returned to the press box at Van Norman Field on Saturday morning, ready to stage history. He facilitated local media and a regional television crew that televised the game live throughout the Northeast. The stats were done. The announcements were made. The interviews were set up. Everything that happens in a sports information director’s football Saturday was handled without missing a beat.
When the game was over, the scoreboard read 35-0 in favor of Cornell and the Mounties had registered just 14 yards of total offense.
But no one left. The packed stands at the stadium recognized that they were watching inexperienced freshmen matching up against juniors and seniors. More importantly, they recognized that the team needed their support that day.
What they didn’t realize was that Steve needed them that day too.
If there is one thing I learned from Steve, it’s that we don’t do this crazy job for ourselves. We don’t work 80 hour weeks and never take a night or weekend off because we want personal gratification. We do it because we appreciate and understand the value of doing things for others. Steve values that above all else, just like one of his mentors, Pete Nevins, did. Before Pete passed away in 2006, he could tell you an exact moment from 30-years before that a parent or a fan approached him. Pete’s message of always making the collegiate athletic experience better for the student-athletes and the fans is one that will always hold true in Steve’s work.
For Steve, his extensive two-year effort to bring football back to his alma mater was completed on that day. While no one in the stadium may have said anything to him after the game, they were all thankful for the efforts he put in, even if they didn’t know half of what he did.
I spoke with him on Monday after what he could only describe as a crazy weekend, and he said one thing that will echo in my ears forever.
“I honestly didn’t want to be there Saturday. I couldn’t focus on anything.”
That’s when it hit me that Steve did something that very few people could have done that week. He put the weight of the entire school on his shoulders and carried it for two years and before he could lift that weight off, he added the weight of dealing with some of the most difficult news of his life.
He served the school with an unimaginable effort, providing some of the best national coverage in the history of Mansfield. He served his family, bouncing back and forth from the office to the hospital, never letting Zach out of his mind.
And he did a wonderful job with both.
There are very few people in my life that have had a resonating impact but I’m beyond proud to say that Steve is one of my closest colleagues and one of my best friends. He would do anything for the people he loves. I hope one day I can be half the sports information director he is. More importantly, I hope I can become half the father he is.
He truly is one of the best.