Ted died Feb. 3. He was a 60-year-old sports writer, coach, mentor, father and friend, gone too soon because of cancer. It's appropriate to commemorate a newspaper lifer with a column in the medium where he served most of his life.
Ted gave me my first newspaper job. While I was attending college and trying to figure out what to do with my life, he asked if I was interested in being a sports writer at the Times-Standard newspaper in Eureka. I said yes. It was amazing. It was miraculous. It was the most fun I'd had, working with interesting people, writing about things I loved.
Ted taught me how to write professionally and modeled how to lead. We left Eureka the same week, me coming to Fairfield, him heading to Southern California before returning to Eureka a few years later. In 2000 – nearly 15 years after we last worked together – I recruited him to be my assistant sports editor in Fairfield.
We were back together again.
Ted and I were friends. Our personalities were very different – I was the class clown, trying to make people laugh; he was the kid sitting in the back of the room, making snide remarks out of the side of his mouth. But we shared a love of sports, of old-time celebrities, of journalism. We laughed at the same things at work. We cared about each other's families.
In recent years, long after we stopped working together, we still texted back and forth during Giants or Warriors games. During last year's baseball playoffs, he sent me several messages about celebrities in the stands, writing in the style of Larry King.
Ted was complicated. He was funny, smart, an outstanding writer (we used to tell each other: "We write better than people who write faster, we write faster than people who write better.") and versatile.
But he also liked to start dust-ups with readers. He would write things that demanded a reaction. That was Ted.
Ted succeeded me as sports editor, then began a truly nomadic journalism career, working in Napa, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Walnut Creek and at various online publications. As newspaper staff sizes shrunk, he bounced from job to job, staying near his kids (three of whom had bylines in the Daily Republic) and trying to hang on. Ted loved newspapers, but it was a one-way love affair.
He kept writing. He kept loving his kids – he was a remarkable father and grandfather. His four children were the center of his life. They knew how much their dad loved them.
Ted mentored generations of sports writers. West Coast newspapers are filled with people who credit Ted with teaching them the basics. Literally dozens of people's lives were changed because Ted Sillanpaa hired them, worked with them and taught them how to be professional journalists – lessons some of us carried beyond our newspaper jobs.
Cancer hit him a few years ago. Typically, he not only didn't seek sympathy, but showed disdain for it. When I heard that he was near death, it came as a surprise: He had said nothing to indicate the severity of his illness. When his oldest son called to tell me he died, it seemed impossible.
Ted?
There are a lot of ways to gauge lives. Ted Sillanpaa wrote thousands of newspaper articles and made tens of thousands of newspaper readers laugh, think and get angry.
But perhaps the best measure of the man is this: Ted left behind scores of athletes he coached (he was a longtime youth sports coach, too), journalists he mentored and friends to whom he was fiercely loyal.
And, especially, he raised four extraordinary children.
Our lives were made richer by a sometimes-cantankerous sports writer who loved his kids, loved his athletes and loved his writing proteges.
RIP, Ted. Thanks for being my friend and for making my professional life possible.
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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