Mike Kahn: Pioneer of Web journalism, loving father

by Steve Miller, FOXSports.com

Dude. Where's your column? When are you going to file? When you went in for surgery, you said you'd be back in a few weeks, maybe a month. And now they're saying you're dead at 54 from complications related to lung cancer. Sorry, I'm not buying it.

So please just tell me this is some elaborate hoax you cooked up to goof on all of us, we'll have our laugh and you can get back to work. Fifty four is way too young to be checking out, especially when there are so many stories left to tell. Nice try, though.

The whole "I used up my sick days so I'm calling in dead" routine is kinda cliché and not very creative, pal. Nowhere nearly as creative as that guy back in the day who called in and said he had to take his girlfriend's dog for laser-eye surgery. Remember him? I think he quit a few weeks later. Now THAT was an excuse. A real artist at work.

This is not to say people aren't falling for your line. You've certainly got them going. Look what they're saying about you.

Dan Wetzel from Yahoo! says:

Mike Kahn, 1954-2008

The sports world lost one of its greatest ambassadors when Mike Kahn passed away Thursday at the age of 54. His obituary can be found by clicking .

"Mike Kahn was a great guy, a terrific journalist and a devoted family man. Mike should also be remembered as an absolute pioneer in sports journalism. In the mid-1990s he saw the power and potential of the Internet and knew there was an audience for original, professionally-written sports content.

"Working outside the establishment I don't think Mike ever got the respect or recognition he deserved. He certainly wasn't a self-promoter — he was happiest just writing about the NBA or talking about his kids.

"He always believed foremost in quality and would always tell me if you deliver that, the audience will follow. He was correct then and he is correct now. Those of us who got to know and work for Mike are blessed for it; he was tremendous person and a true game changer in the history of this business."

Pete Wevurski, your old boss at the Tacoma News Tribune, said:

"Mike Kahn was one of the very best sports journalists I've had the pleasure of knowing or working with. ... Mike's beat coverage of the Sonics was second to none. He and (John) Clayton taught the whole Puget Sound market how to cover a sports beat and, along with Bart Wright and later Don Borst, Larry LaRue and others, grew into what ESPN's Chris Mortensen once told me was 'the greatest sports staff the rest of the country never heard of.'

"I told Chris he was wrong. It wasn't a sports staff, it was a family. And now Mike Kahn is the first of our family to leave us. We're shocked and heartbroken. He leaves a huge hole that even tons of great Mike Kahn memories won't ever fill up.

"I'll never forget Mike's work ethic, his curiosity, industry, loyalty, friendship and above all, his devotion to JoAnn and his pride in Sarah and Andy. He's left us far too soon, but I know I'm not alone when I say I'm awfully glad to have had the time we had together."

There are plenty of other tributes like that out there on the Web, but you get the idea. Oh, I can hear you making those gak noises. Stop it. Grow up. They're doing a better job of it than I could. Me? What do I think? Oh come on, dude. You know what I think. I've told you many times. Oh, all right, fine, whatever. Here goes, one more time.

Thanks for giving me the biggest break of my career when you brought me in at SportsLine USA in 1996. Thanks for being there when we tried new things and made all the mistakes that would eventually lead us to figuring out how to make this Web stuff work. And thanks for turning me on to coneys at the Skyline.

Thanks for that night during the Atlanta Olympics when the bomb went off in Centennial Park and everyone worked all night to remake the home page of the site (we even put a PHOTO on the home page!) and get the story out there by morning. It was another 24 hours before the big East Coast newspapers got a crack at it, and it gave us all a real reason to believe that maybe there was something to this Internet thing after all.

Thanks for fighting off the business jackals and tech geeks who very mistakenly thought that anyone could do what we do. Thanks for standing up for editorial integrity and fending off the idiots who thought people were just an expense and that compelling sports content was something you could get a computer program to write and edit for you.

Thanks for fighting tirelessly for the credentialing of Web site sportswriters at a time when nobody — and I mean nobody — seemed to know or care what the Web was, and had even less inclination to cooperate with us.

Thanks for the CyberSpy. That was your daily column of sports notes and news, with links to other stories. Yes, it was a blog, only we didn't call it that, because blogs hadn't been "invented" yet. CyberSpy was one of the first sports blogs out there, not that many folks remember it. But it was there. And you wrote it.

So yes, thanks for being a pioneer in sports Web journalism. Although I suspect if you heard people calling you a "pioneer," you'd probably grab the imaginary tail of your raccoon cap and give the secret "woo woo woo" Raccoon Lodge salute from the Honeymooners. When we'd sit around in the crammed newsroom in that converted doctor's office of a building down in Fort Lauderdale, I'd hold up my hands like a movie director sizing a shot, and I'd say, "When they write the history of sports journalism on the Web, this picture should be right on the cover." And more often than not, you'd be right in the middle of the frame.

Thanks for being a fiercely loyal, tireless boss, and thanks for being cool about it when our roles were reversed and you wound up working for me. And thanks for bringing that same passion and enthusiasm to your writing on the NBA for FOXSports.com.

Now I'll thank you to get back to work. Pick a topic — Kobe and the Lakers, LeBron's future, how the Knicks are still up the creek — and start writing. Don't make me come after you. Not yet, anyway.

Memorial contributions may be made in Mike's name to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center — (800) 279-1618 or online at http://www.fhcrc.org/.

Steve Miller is the Managing Editor of FOXSports.com.