Former Times' sports editor Sam Bechtel headed to Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame
HOPEWELL TWP. -- Sam Bechtel enjoyed his career in journalism so much that he once said "I never felt like I worked a day in my life."
Such was the satisfaction Bechtel got from his job as a newspaper man for close to 38 years including 13 as sports editor of the Beaver County Times.
A 1961 graduate of Beaver High School, Bechtel started and ended his career at the Indiana Gazette in Indiana, Pa. He would spend eight years at a major metropolitan newspaper, the Pittsburgh Press.
But those 13 years running the sports department of the Beaver County Times were among his most memorable.
On the short list of most influential journalists to ever work for the BCT, news or sports, Bechtel deserves a spot on that list. He's one of the most influential journalists, print or broadcast media, in Beaver County history.
That's why he's among the inductees in the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame's Class of 2022 which will be honored at a banquet at The Fez in Hopewell on Sunday.
After Bechtel was hired by the BCT in February of 1971, it didn't take long for him to transform an ordinary, run-of-the-mill sports section into one of the best in the country for a publication its size.
His journalistic know-how and vision allowed him to develop a sports staff that would cover high school, college and pro sports as never seen before in Beaver County.
He was the first Beaver County journalist to cover the Pittsburgh Steelers on a regular basis.
He gave the Pitt football beat to Andy Nuzzo, the only full-time sports reporter on staff when Bechtel was hired. Upon hiring Ed Rose, a versatile sports reporter who wrote a weekly auto racing column, the BCT had its first Pittsburgh Pirates beat reporter.
When Bechtel decided to devote more time to his overall duties as sports editor, he hired Rich Emert to cover the Steelers.
Shortly after that, Bechtel added two more reporters to his staff. That staff made the BCT one of the best sports sections in the state and the country. Its reporters annually earned prestigious writing awards. The staff as a whole won awards annually. And in 1978, the Beaver County Times was named the No. 1 sports section in the country for a paper its size by The Associated Press sports editors.
With Bechtel's induction into the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame, he joins five other journalists whose careers he impacted during his 13 years at the BCT: Nuzzo, who died in 2017; Rose, who would succeed Bechtel as sports editor; Mike Bires, who ended his 40-year run as a sports reporter with the BCT in December of 2021; Ron Cook, who's now a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a radio talk show host at 93.7 The Fan; and John Perrotto, who's now a Major League Baseball reporter who covers the Pirates.
After graduating from Beaver in 1961, Bechtel attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he majored in history and English. During that time, he worked for WDAD Radio in Indiana, writing news and sports scripts while also providing on-air analysis of IUP football games.
He briefly worked as executive director of the Indiana Tourism Bureau. In 1967, he entered the newspaper business when he was hired as a one-person staff sports editor of the Indiana Gazette.
He stayed at the Gazette until he left for the Beaver County Times in 1971.
In 1984, Bechtel left the BCT to become deputy sports editor of the Pittsburgh Press. He stayed with the Press until it folded on Dec. 31, 1992.
In 1993, he returned to the Indiana Gazette, first as assistant managing editor and then as executive editor. He stayed with the Gazette until he retired in 2004.
"The most important thing I ever did, and I say this about all the jobs I had, was hire great people," said Bechtel, who now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. "Why I had that ability to see their potential, I'll never know, But it served me well."
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Former Times' sports editor Sam Bechtel headed to Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame
