Pat Harmon, Sports Editor and Football History Writer, Retires

This is from Fred Mitchell's "Around Town" column in the Chicago Tribune on July 21, 2005:

Pat Harmon, whose career as a sportswriter and editor spanned more than 70 years, has retired as the historian for the National Football Foundation&College Hall of Fame. Harmon began his career in 1933 covering events at age 17 for the Freeport (Ill.) Journal Standard during the Depression. He served as sports editor and columnist for the Cincinnati Post for more than 34 years, starting in 1951. Harmon, who will turn 89 on Sept. 2, covered such greats as Vince Lombardi, Pete Rose, Casey Stengel, Arnold Palmer, Eddie Robinson, John Wooden, Paul "Bear" Bryant, Jack Nicklaus, Woody Hayes, Paul Brown and Joe Louis. Harmon also wrote for the Champaign News-Gazette in 1934 when he became a student at the University of Illinois. He may be known best for inaugurating the selection of All-State high school football and basketball teams in Illinois.

Pat Harmon was one of those guys I wanted to be while growing up in Cincinnati. He was the sports editor for the Post, which was then (and is now) the No. 2 paper in Cincy to the Enquirer. My family had both subscriptions. The Enquirer was a morning paper, and the Post was the afternoon paper. And I used to read both. Especially the sports sections.

Pat was Old School. He covered the Reds before Frank Robinson was on the team, for Pete's sake. He covered Paul Brown as a new (and highly successful) coach in the NFL for the Browns. So by the time I started reading his stuff, he KNEW Frank Robinson and the trade that sent him to the Orioles. He KNEW Paul Brown and the baby Bengals. He was a part of the history.

The below item was all I could find in his old paper, the Cincinnati Post:

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050719/SPT/507190316/-1/all

MORRISTOWN, N.J.

Football historian Harmon retires

Pat Harmon retired as historian of the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame.

"Pat has dedicated himself to the reporting, researching and publicizing of sports, in particular football, for more than 70 years," NFF chairman Jon F. Hanson said in a statement Monday. "We have been privileged to have an individual with his depth of knowledge as a resource for our organization and the entire nation."

Harmon began his career in 1933, covering events for the Freeport Journal Standard in Illinois at the age of 17. Harmon later spent 34 years at The Cincinnati Post as a sports editor and columnist. He retired in 1986, and began his tenure as NFF historian.

"The job has been wonderful," Harmon, 89, said in the statement. "It's the contact with people that I will miss the most. Every day, I think about something that
I could be doing. But, heck, I am almost 90 years old. It's time to retire."

http://www.footballfoundation.com/news.php?id=290

http://www.footballfoundation.com/news.php?id=650