Here's a Monday morning confession: I never wanted to write news.
My dream was to be a sports columnist.
Why? That's easy.
For years I started just about every day by reading Billy Lyon's column in the Inquirer.
I was a bad athlete in high school, a sports fanatic who fancied himself a writer.
I read Bill Lyon and said to myself, "Yeah, that's what I want to do."
Then I came face to face with the stark reality that every would-be writer does:
I stared at a blank piece of paper just waiting for me to fill it up with wonderful words, expressions and anecdotes.
No, I was never going to be a Bill Lyon.
Very few are.
Lyon did not really write sports columns. He wrote prose, life lessons wrapped around what we in the newspaper business sometimes refer to as the "comics section."
Lyon profiled our sports heroes from the perspective of his readers. He knew the passion of a Philly fan, its long, frustrating lineage, handed down from father to son - and daughter. It is part of what makes us tick. And everything Lyon wrote came from that perspective.
Our sports heroes all too often failed us on the playing field. Bill Lyon never did.
We lost Bill Lyon Sunday, lost to the ravages of Alzheimer's. And just in case anyone ever questioned Lyon's writing ability, he detailed his struggle against this dreaded disease with a poignant series of columns.
RIP, Bill Lyon.
The Philadelphia journalism world is a lesser place today.
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