<Archive Obituaries> Tom Mees (August 13th 1996)
Bill Schenley
Photo: http://msnsportsnet.com/content/TomMees.jpg
FROM: The New York Daily News (August 15th 1996) ~
By Helen Kennedy and Bob Raissman, Staff Writers
Sportscaster Tom Mees, one of the original ESPN "SportsCenter"
anchors, drowned yesterday after rescuing his 4-year-old daughter, who
was going down for the last time in a Connecticut neighbor's pool.
Mees' hysterical wife found little Gabrielle Mees in perfect health on
the cement by the pool and her husband lifeless on the bottom of the
deep end.
"How it happened, I don't know," said Police Lt. James Tortora in
Southington, Conn. "I know the end, I don't know the means. There was
no one there except the 4-year-old, and she's in no shape to talk."
Police said Mees, 46, was playing by his neighbor's outdoor pool with
his two daughters, Gabrielle and 8-year-old Lauren, when the younger
girl fell into the pool sometime after 2 p.m.
Mees jumped in to save her and Lauren ran next door to get her mother,
Michelle.
"When she gets there, Tom is at the bottom of the deep end of the pool
and the 4-year-old is out of the pool," Tortora said. "The assumption
is that he dives in, saves her and then ends up dead for some unknown
reason."
Michelle Mees' cries attracted Jeff Krupinski, 21, who was mowing a
nearby lawn. Krupinski, who dragged Mees' body from the pool, said he
didn't see the drowning and didn't know how it happened.
"I saw him in the pool," he said. "He was at the bottom. It was
definitely a traumatic experience."
Mees had no pulse when he was brought to Bradley Memorial Hospital at
2:50 p.m.
Efforts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m.,
said Richard Corcoran, hospital vice president.
Word of Mees' death spread quickly through ESPN's headquarters in
Bristol, Conn.
"At first, people were surprised," said ESPN spokesman Chris LaPlaca.
"Then it went to shock, then devastation. People are walking around
here in disbelief."
Mees was a popular member of the ESPN crew. He came to the network
after working local radio in Wilmington, Del., and doing TV in
Tallahassee, Fla. His broadcasting goal was to do play-by-play, and he
got his shot when the network acquired rights to National Hockey
League games.
"He was living his dream of doing play-by-play," said Keith Olbermann,
one of ESPN's anchors.
"There's no way to articulate the exuberance, fun and enthusiasm Tom
brought to anything he did on and off the air," said Bob Ley, who also
joined ESPN at its inception.
Mees' colleagues remembered a man whose priority was his family.
"As good a broadcaster as he was, he was a 10 times better father,"
LaPlaca said.
LaPlaca said he spoke to Mees' father, Tom Sr., late yesterday
afternoon. "It was hard," LaPlaca said. "He really was shaken; he
wanted someone to reach out to."
---
Original ESPNer Mees Dies In Swim Accident
FROM: The Philadelphia Daily News (August 15th 1996) ~
By Bill Fleischman, Sports Writer
An enjoyable summer afternoon ended in tragedy yesterday when ESPN's
Tom Mees drowned in a neighbor's pool.
Mees, one of ESPN's original "SportsCenter" anchors, was a University
of Delaware graduate.
According to Southington, Conn., police Lt. James Tortora, a lawn
maintenance man pulled Mees from the water. Michelle Mees reportedly
told police her husband did not know how to swim.
Police and fire officials said Mees, 46, had no pulse or respiration
when he was brought to Bradley Memorial Hospital in Southington at
2:50 p.m. Richard Corcoran, a hospital vice president, said Mees could
not be revived and was pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m.
An autopsy is scheduled for today.
Southington is about 10 minutes from ESPN's headquarters in Bristol,
Conn.
Earlier yesterday, the Associated Press reported Mees jumped into the
pool to save his daughter, Gabrielle, 4, who had fallen into the deep
end of the pool. The report said Mees's other daughter, Lauren, 8, ran
home to get her mother. When they returned, Tortora said, they found
Mees at the bottom of the pool. Gabrielle was safe, out of the water.
Last night, police amended the report and termed the death a swimming
accident, saying they could not confirm the rescue attempt.
"We believe at this point there was no rescue attempt," police Capt.
Domenic Lombardo said. The only witnesses were the Mees children, and
they have not been extensively interviewed.
An ESPN spokesman last night said the family was saying that Mees died
in a swimming pool accident, not a rescue attempt.
Mees anchored the network's nightly highlights show, "SportsCenter,"
from its inception in September 1979 to 1993.
Said ESPN president Steve Bornstein: "Tom was an ESPN pioneer, and the
entire ESPN family is devastated by this terrible news."
For the past two seasons, Mees was the lead play-by-play announcer for
ESPN2's NHL telecasts. Hockey was the sport he most loved. When ESPN
first carried NHL games in the mid-1980s, Mees was the studio host. He
also called college football and basketball games for ESPN.
After graduating from Delaware in 1972, Mees was sports director at
WILM-AM in Wilmington for six years. Working with the late Bob Kelley,
Mees was the commentator on Delaware football and basketball games. He
moved to WECA-TV in Tallahassee, Fla., before joining ESPN in 1979.
Len Holmquist worked with Mees at WILM. "When Tom was working in
Florida, he sent ESPN a tape," Holmquist said last night. "I had a lot
of respect for Tom. He went for it and he made it. He was a good
broadcaster."
"There will always be a lifetime bond among those here in the early
days," said Bob Ley, another original staffer at ESPN. "
'SportsCenter' would not be what it is today without the 60- to
80-hour work weeks he put in when ESPN was just a rumor. The only
thing he loved more than his hockey and his Delaware Blue Hens was his
family."
In a tribute to Mees on "SportsCenter" last night, anchor Keith
Olbermann said, "Nothing, and no one here, will ever be the same
without him."
---
APPRECIATION: A Loss In The Family;
Death Of ESPN's Mees Hits Home
FROM: The Boston Herald (August 15th 1996) ~
By Steve Buckley
On his way to a meeting yesterday afternoon, Charley Steiner ran into
Tom Mees between buildings at the ESPN complex in Bristol, Conn. The
two sports-television veterans stopped to talk shop for a couple of
minutes, with Mees saying how much he was looking forward to the
upcoming NHL season.
"The best thing about doing play-by-play," Mees told Steiner, "is that
I get to spend more time with my family."
Steiner waved so long and went his way, saying he'd see Mees at next
week's meeting to plan ESPN's coverage of college football.
"Yeah, see you on Monday," Mees said.
Less than two hours later, Tom Mees, an ESPN original, was dead. Mees
drowned in a neighbor's pool in Southington, Conn. He is a victim of a
tragedy that should sound an alarm as to just how fragile all our
lives are.
He was 46 years old. He was a husband. He was a father of two girls.
He was a man who, after years and years of dues-paying, was becoming
one of the top players in his business.
"I'm still numbed by this," said Steiner, who had known Mees since
their days doing play-by-play in the United States Football League. "I
guess I'm not very experienced in dealing with death at this level.
And for him to say he was happy to be spending more time with his
family . . . that's something that a lot of people can identify with."
And that word - family - remained in focus to Steiner as he sat down
at his computer terminal late yesterday afternoon to write the copy he
would use on "SportsCenter." After ESPN executive Vince Doria stunned
the newsroom with news of Mees' death, Steiner wrote the following
words: "A member of our family has passed away . . . and a member of
yours, too."
Steiner then walked into a studio and read those words to the millions
of viewers who had, indeed, welcomed Tom Mees into their homes over
the years.
Make no mistake about it: When people do television, and when they do
it right, they become your friends, your neighbors. And Tom Mees did
it right, did it right for years, and we watched him grow as ESPN
grew.
Such is the sophistication of the modern sports fan that it is fairly
easy to tell who is mailing it in and who is not. Anyone who watched
the NHL on ESPN and ESPN2 knew that Mees absolutely did not mail it
in. And he took no "Golly gee, let's all learn hockey together"
approach. He knew the game, he loved the game and he shared both this
knowledge and this love with anyone who tuned in. His style was smooth
and folksy, yet he did not speak with a flash-card simplicity. He
respected his viewers too much to leap to the conclusion that they
could not keep up.
Part of Mees' charm may have been that he was no instant star. On
Sept. 7, 1979, when ESPN first crept into the homes of those viewers
who could get it, Mees was one of the anchors. There was a lot of
patch work and learning on the job in those days, certainly a lot of
headaches, heartache and second-guessing, and probably a lot of
80-hour weeks, too.
The in-house skeptics moved on. Others, either because they were
determined or ambitious or maybe just naive, remained. Chris Berman
saw it through. Bob Ley, too. And, yes, Tom Mees.
When the NHL arrived at ESPN, Mees had found his niche. It was a good
fit - an eager league, a growing network, an announcer who was both.
Doing hockey play-by-play a couple of days a week was no doubt a
grind, yet it had to be liberating from the day-to-day grind of
marching into the studio and making sense of the day's sports news.
For Tom Mees, it was cake. More hockey meant more time with his wife,
Michelle, and the kids.
"We report on death all the time," Steiner said last night, "but
you're insulated by the distance. You're always reporting about a
member of the sports world you didn't know, or didn't know well, but
it doesn't hit you the way this did.
"God, I had just been with Tom, and now I was reading the wire report
about his death. It was very hard for all of us to do this."
And because, yes, Tom Mees was a member of a family that extended far
beyond Connecticut, it was very hard for us to watch.
---
Photo:
http://www.cnusd.k12.ca.us/stallings-es/ESPN/espn_logo_240_001.jpg
William Barger
sports fan, but do not remember Mr. Mees death. Musta been livin' in a
cave that week
Bill