Sportsman of the week: Cam Cole, sportswriter

Cam Cole is hanging up his keyboard after 41 years as a must-read sports writer and columnist.

His Vancouver Sun colleague Iain Macintyre has described Cole as belonging on the Mount Rushmore of sports writing. Anyone who has spent time reading sports in Canada would agree.

How much will he missed? Just Google his name and "retirement" and you'll quickly get a sense. 

Cole took a few minutes out from being feted to answer questions about his distinguished career, his unlikely love of figure skating, and the ever-present moustache.

Has your decision to retire sunk in?

Since word came out it's been like the dead musician syndrome whereby everybody that barely had anything to say to me except "you're an idiot" is now totally complimentary of my work. It's a shocking development really, and frankly a little embarrassing. 

Do you remember the first story you wrote?

I was hired out of the University of Alberta Gateway [newspaper]. The Edmonton Journal sports editor had fired his high school writer and called me and asked if I could write high school sports for them. I was in the middle of my second year of university and I said, "like, now?" And he said "now." So I quit and went to work at the Edmonton Journal and my first story was about the Louis St. Laurent Barons. They were a high school basketball team that hadn't won a game in a couple of years, maybe longer than that.

​Where you born with that moustache?

No. I adopted it the year after I started working at the Edmonton Journal. I looked 12 years old in my first [newspaper] mug shot and felt this wouldn't do. It's been there ever since.

Favourite story you've ever written?

I really like the piece that I did the day I was catching a plane to New York from Toronto to write Gretzky's retirement game. And then there was the one the day after Jean van de Velde melted down so spectacularly at Carnoustie in the Open Championships in 1999. I was able to play the golf course the day after with the club captain who had been a marshal in the van de Velde group who took me to the spot where he hit his first of several disaster shots from. 

Story you most regret?

I wouldn't mind forgetting the one I wrote saying Peter Pocklington is in receivership. This was at a time where he was up to his ears in problems with the Edmonton Oilers. The next day Pocklington called a press conference and everyone was sure that this was going to be it — that he would announce he was divesting himself of his ownership of the Oilers. Instead he announced he was suing me.  

Why such a connection to figure skating?

Kurt Browning's emergence got me into figure skating where I wouldn't have gone to a figure skating rink for anything. It just wasn't in my sphere of interest. But suddenly this totally charismatic kid with tons of talent comes along and you're crazy if you ignore him. And I found figure skaters to be the most forthcoming and the most interesting athletes that I ended up covering in my career. 

Kurt Browning told me, "With Cam, it was about the sport and not about him. He was a writer but he also let his 'fan' side show just enough." Browning also said, "I did not want to read what Cam wrote if I deserved harsh commentary." How hard was it walking that line?

I think the best in our business are people who will write and not run. If somebody has a problem with what you've written and you show up at the rink the next day, at least you're there to be complained to. I think athletes respect that.

Have you ever taken a selfie with an athlete?

No!

Have you ever asked for an autograph?

I've never asked for one but I have two. I've got one from Wayne Gretzky — he signed a stick and gave it to me. And I caddied for Jack Nicklaus at a course opening in Kelowna and he signed my caddie's bib. Considering I didn't ask for them they're two pretty good souvenirs of a career. 

The demands of producing a daily column have been known to take a toll on writers. What was it like for you?

I found it to be not even remotely like work for 20 or 30 years. But once I moved to the National Post and had the mandate to write national columns, that's when it got a little more dicey because you had to figure out what would sell in Vancouver and Edmonton as well as Toronto. And then when I came out to Vancouver and all of a sudden had to write on eastern deadlines on national matters, it meant having to get my copy in by three or four in the afternoon. It just became increasingly more difficult. 

Why now?

I'm 63 years old and the buyout offer came along and the timing was right. A lot of things about my job that I've loved the most over the years in my job are changing.You're losing a lot of colleagues to buyouts and layoffs and a lot of the familiar faces are gone. And travel isn't what it was and it might be less so in the future. So it just seemed if I was going to cut and run, this might the best chance for a happy ending.