For as long as I've lived in the greater Philadelphia area (the Delaware Valley to the locals), I've been a fan of Bill Lyon. For many years he was THE sports columnist in a city that has no shortage of them, a city that's as sports-crazy as any I've ever seen.
But after Bill retired from the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2005, the Philly sports world was never quite the same. So it's a thrill to find that Bill has returned to writing a regular column, this time with Philadelphia Sports Daily, a new website. You can read about Bill's new column here.
I first became acquainted with Bill's work when, not long after moving to the area nearly 20 years ago, I became a rabid Philadelphia Eagles fan. (My buds from back home in Wisconsin will cringe, but fear not, fellow cheeseheads, I still root for the Pack - if they're not facing the Eagles.)
In any case, after watching the Eagles on Sunday I'd rifle through the Inquirer sports section on Monday morning (these were the pre-Internet days, kiddies) and immediately latch onto Bill's column. As a lover of football and good writing, reading Bill's unique take on the game, the team, the players and the coaches was, as my kids would say, a totally awesome experience.
Strangely, though, the Bill Lyon column I remember best had only a tangential connection to sports. Written five days after the Sept. 11 attacks, it was ostensibly about the resumption of professional sporting events, which had been postponed immediately following 9/11.
But the column, titled "The games resume, but the view will never be the same," was really about much more - a nation in mourning, patriotism, and the people lost on that horrible day.
In it, Bill ruminated on how the term "hero" is so loosely applied to pro athletes:
"No, they are not necessarily heroes when compared to, say, passengers on a doomed jetliner willing to sacrifice their own lives to thwart another suicide strike.
Or flight attendants who resisted to the very end.
Or people who stayed in stairwells to help others out of a towering inferno.
Or the valorous firefighters, whose job is frighteningly simple: You go into the buildings that everyone else is running out of."
It was the single most moving piece of prose I've read about 9/11.
Bill is routinely called the greatest sports columnist in Philadelphia history, and to my mind that's a given. But I prefer to think of him as a great columnist, period. Bill writes about sports, yes, but what makes his work shine is its humanity. He knows better than anyone that the stories we remember aren't about batting averages or draft picks. The stories we remember, the ones that stay with us long after the games are over, are about people.
A Gift for Philly Sports Fans: Legendary Columnist Bill Lyon is Back
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Bill Lyon photo courtesy Philadelphia Sports Daily
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