How Dave Smith helped create a credible pathway for the nation's sports editors

Dave Smith’s speech at the Associated Press Managing Editors convention in the early 1970s helped him realize the insignificance of sports editors at the time.

Smith was the last speaker of the event, waiting to talk about sports in front of the same packed house that had gathered to hear from a “legendary writer and TV guy” who spoke before Smith. But by the time Smith got up to speak, the crowd had shrunk by half.

The epiphany-like moment only added to the problems Smith and other sports editors already were experiencing, as they faced difficulties getting an adequate number of credentials for major events and limited access to locker rooms. Smith knew something had to change.

“These editors aren’t paying attention to sports, or they just don’t give a damn, or they have no interest,” Smith said. “I watched what they did and thought, ‘you know, this is the answer, we just form an organization.’ ”

Smith knew it would take more than one sports editor to effect wide-scale change, so he reached out to AP sports editor Wick Temple, feeling that aligning with the AP could be a way for the fledgling group of sports editors to gain clout quickly. Smith enlisted the help of Earl Cox of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Bill Millsaps of Richmond and Wayne Fuson of the Indianapolis News.

The first official APSE gathering took place on June 4, 1974. From there, the organization was formed, with Smith as its first president.

That first meeting was held in a small New York hotel pool room. Smith said there was tension in the atmosphere and that attendance dropped from 20 to 19 after a controversial conversation on the code of ethics.

“At that time, newspapers were it, and every sports entity needed us,” Smith said. “As it evolved, we learned more and more what issues we needed to deal with.”

Soon, APSE’s meetings included key sports commissioners, opening dialogues about the challenges sports editors were up against. Although the yearly meetings were still held in New York, the organization continually expanded the community and conversation to small newspapers, breaking its growing membership up into regions, and encouraging retinol meetings.

Smith extended an invitation to his former assistant sports editor at the Boston Globe, Vince Doria, in 1975, allowing Doria to attend his first convention in 1976. Doria followed in his predecessor’s footsteps, eventually becoming the Globe’s sports editor and APSE’s president.

“Because of (Smith)’s involvement in it, I was involved in it,” Doria said. “APSE was a great opportunity to bond with editors around the country, to get to know them, to meet them face to

face.”

Smith said he believes the work of those early APSE editors sparked the development of sports sections and dispelled the image of sports as the toy department.  

“The teams, the leagues, the organizations respected us because of that,” Smith said. “The world wanted credentials, there was a limit on how many the U.S. could get, and we became the advisers for all that stuff.”

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