In this business, where deadlines once were a daily occurrence, and now in the Internet age are a minute-by-minute affair, stress levels tend to run high.
People react to stress in different ways. Some of us curse, scream and kick things. OK, that’s actually just me.
Then there was Greg Greenday.
I had the singular honor of working with Greg every day for more than 20 years.
During that time, especially in the last decade when I found myself in the editor’s chair and Greg was one of my trusted assistant city editors, I must have gone into my Mount St. Helens act hundreds of times.
I never once saw Greg lose his cool. Or raise his voice. He was the consumate professional.
We shared a couple of passions. We were both avid golfers. One of us could actually play. It wasn’t me.
Years ago, back when many of the editors were routinely off on Fridays, Greg used to put together golf outings over at Beckett Golf Club in New Jersey.
Make no mistake, Greg could really play. The rest of us were hackers. I had just taken up the game. A couple of decades later, I can actually get around a course fairly well. I have no great desire to go out with a bunch of guys who don’t know a pitching wedge from a club sandwich, who think golf etiquette is a T-shirt that doesn’t have holes in it.
But Greg loved it. He would cajole us around the course, offering encouragement, giving a tip here and there. And always sharing that huge smile. He was happy on the golf course. But that was not terribly different from any other place he landed in life.
The other passion we shared was the quaint notion of putting ink on paper.
Like me, Greg was a bit of a throwback. He was what we now refer to as a “print guy.”
Greg started at the Daily Times covering sports as a correspondent. It was the start of a lifetime love affair.
After a side trip to Widener University as their director of sports information, Greg joined our sports staff in 1984. Over the next 23 years, he would do just about everything you could do in sports. And when that was not enough, he “crossed over,” landing on the city desk as an assistant sports editor.
Saying Greg was well-known in the Delco sports community is kind of like saying the pope is Catholic. Ya think?
When it comes to Delco, I’m a bit of an outsider. I grew up in Chester County. Every time I meet someone in Delco and I tell them where I work, they inevitably ask me the same question. “Do you know Greg Greenday?”
What usually followed is a testament to something Greg had done for them, or something he wrote.
Over the years, Greg wrote a lot. He wrote about community sports. He wrote about bowling. He wrote about golf. He would beam every spring as the calendar ticked down toward April and his annual jaunt to Augusta National to cover the Masters. Eventually he took on the Eagles beat, and he brought with it the same warmth and humanity he used to cover sports in Delaware County. He was one of the first to zero in on a vast, untapped area of sports coverage – summer softball. His work formed the backbone of what – 25 years later – is one of this newspaper’s greatest legacies, the annual Champs ‘N’ Charity Classic. The funds from that tournament every year go to the American Cancer Society.
Eventually, Greg made the decision to try something else in life, but his heart always remained in newspapers. When his new venture didn’t work out, he went back to what he loved, becoming sports editor of the Daily Local News in West Chester.
And he immediately went about instituting the same kind of community coverage he pushed here. He was instrumental in the move to create the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame.
I still would talk to Greg often. He was now working in Chester County, but his heart remained here in Delco.
Greg Greenday died over the weekend. He leaves behind a hole in his family here at the Daily Times, and in the sports communities of both Delaware and Chester counties that will be impossible to fill.
I have lost a dear friend. And if you read this newspaper, or if you were involved in local sports, you may not realize it, but you also have lost a friend.
That’s the kind of guy Greg Greenday was.
A newspaperman. And one of the best I ever knew.
Rest well, Greg.
And one other thing. When you get to those heavenly links, hit ‘em well.
People react to stress in different ways. Some of us curse, scream and kick things. OK, that’s actually just me.
Then there was Greg Greenday.
I had the singular honor of working with Greg every day for more than 20 years.
During that time, especially in the last decade when I found myself in the editor’s chair and Greg was one of my trusted assistant city editors, I must have gone into my Mount St. Helens act hundreds of times.
I never once saw Greg lose his cool. Or raise his voice. He was the consumate professional.
We shared a couple of passions. We were both avid golfers. One of us could actually play. It wasn’t me.
Years ago, back when many of the editors were routinely off on Fridays, Greg used to put together golf outings over at Beckett Golf Club in New Jersey.
Make no mistake, Greg could really play. The rest of us were hackers. I had just taken up the game. A couple of decades later, I can actually get around a course fairly well. I have no great desire to go out with a bunch of guys who don’t know a pitching wedge from a club sandwich, who think golf etiquette is a T-shirt that doesn’t have holes in it.
But Greg loved it. He would cajole us around the course, offering encouragement, giving a tip here and there. And always sharing that huge smile. He was happy on the golf course. But that was not terribly different from any other place he landed in life.
The other passion we shared was the quaint notion of putting ink on paper.
Like me, Greg was a bit of a throwback. He was what we now refer to as a “print guy.”
Greg started at the Daily Times covering sports as a correspondent. It was the start of a lifetime love affair.
After a side trip to Widener University as their director of sports information, Greg joined our sports staff in 1984. Over the next 23 years, he would do just about everything you could do in sports. And when that was not enough, he “crossed over,” landing on the city desk as an assistant sports editor.
Saying Greg was well-known in the Delco sports community is kind of like saying the pope is Catholic. Ya think?
When it comes to Delco, I’m a bit of an outsider. I grew up in Chester County. Every time I meet someone in Delco and I tell them where I work, they inevitably ask me the same question. “Do you know Greg Greenday?”
What usually followed is a testament to something Greg had done for them, or something he wrote.
Over the years, Greg wrote a lot. He wrote about community sports. He wrote about bowling. He wrote about golf. He would beam every spring as the calendar ticked down toward April and his annual jaunt to Augusta National to cover the Masters. Eventually he took on the Eagles beat, and he brought with it the same warmth and humanity he used to cover sports in Delaware County. He was one of the first to zero in on a vast, untapped area of sports coverage – summer softball. His work formed the backbone of what – 25 years later – is one of this newspaper’s greatest legacies, the annual Champs ‘N’ Charity Classic. The funds from that tournament every year go to the American Cancer Society.
Eventually, Greg made the decision to try something else in life, but his heart always remained in newspapers. When his new venture didn’t work out, he went back to what he loved, becoming sports editor of the Daily Local News in West Chester.
And he immediately went about instituting the same kind of community coverage he pushed here. He was instrumental in the move to create the Chester County Sports Hall of Fame.
I still would talk to Greg often. He was now working in Chester County, but his heart remained here in Delco.
Greg Greenday died over the weekend. He leaves behind a hole in his family here at the Daily Times, and in the sports communities of both Delaware and Chester counties that will be impossible to fill.
I have lost a dear friend. And if you read this newspaper, or if you were involved in local sports, you may not realize it, but you also have lost a friend.
That’s the kind of guy Greg Greenday was.
A newspaperman. And one of the best I ever knew.
Rest well, Greg.
And one other thing. When you get to those heavenly links, hit ‘em well.
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