Fort Worth and DFW sports journalism lose a legend in ‘The Quiet One,’ Galyn Wilkins
It would be hard to get in a word at a table with Dan Jenkins, Blackie Sherrod, Frank Luksa, Randy Galloway, Jim Reeves, Bud Shrake, Gary Cartwright, et al, which suited Galyn Wilkins just fine.
Wilkins was a longtime sports columnist at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram who worked in an era of sports journalism that was renowned for big, loud, funny characters.
Galyn was a character. He was the quiet one.
“The first word that comes to mind when you mention Galyn’s name is genuine; I don’t know that you can pay someone a better compliment than that,” the late Sherrod told Jim Reeves in 1994. Sherrod was the longtime, award-winning sports columnist at The Dallas Morning News.
“You’d be in a room, talking to him, and then you’d turn around and he wouldn’t be there. He wouldn’t say beans, then he’d be gone. I’ve had it happen with just the two of us in the room. I’d go off to the bathroom for a minute, come out, poof! No Galyn.”
Galyn Wilkins died on Sunday morning at his home in northwest Fort Worth after a fight against cancer. He was 89.
“He was the consummate journalist who knew his craft. He knew his subject. He knew the business as thoroughly as anybody,” former Fort Worth Star-Telegram and MLB.com reporter T.R. Sullivan in a phone interview. T.R. worked with Galyn for about 10 years.
Galyn was hired by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in July of 1959. His last official date with the Star-Telegram was Jan. 1, 1995.
He and the late Dan Jenkins followed a similar path. Like Jenkins, Wilkins graduated from both Paschal and TCU. Wilkins finished TCU in 1958, where he served as the associate editor of The Daily Skiff.
He came to the Star-Telegram after working at smaller news organizations in West Texas, specifically Sweetwater and San Angelo.
“He was the type you would never seen on an ESPN or anything like that. You just read excellent, insightful work edition after edition,” T.R. said. “He wasn’t a guy you would chit-chat with at all; he could be gruff. He would remind of you a Bill Belichick type. I always really liked talking to him.”
Wilkins came to the Star-Telegram when most of the sports coverage in DFW was college football and professional golf.
He was a foremost expert on Southwest Conference football, and the Darrell Royal era at the University of Texas. Or Jackie Sherrill at Texas A&M.
The same for TCU football when that program suffered through its multi-decade run of unwatchable football.
When the University of Texas hired John Mackovic as its head football coach in December of 1991, Wilkins wrote, “You mean that’s it? No cross-country flights under trench coats and assumed names? No newspaper spies hiding behind potted plants in hotel lobbies? One interview and John Mackovic gets the job at Texas?
“Hiring a big-league college football coach used to be done with the decorum and efficiency of a Central American revolution. The palace would be under siege by the alumni and news media for weeks. Coaches would be hired in the papers one day and drop out of sight the next. The list of candidates would include anyone not confined to a mental institution or under a felony indictment.”
He was covering sports when the Dallas Cowboys were born and when the Washington Senators moved from Washington to Arlington and became the Texas Rangers.
He was there when the NBA granted an expansion franchise to create the Mavericks. He was near the end of his career when the Stars moved from Minnesota to Texas.
Even as the media landscape changed around him in the 1980s with the advent of cable television, Wilkins remained a classic story teller.
When football legend Bobby Layne died in 1985, Wilkins wrote: “Time didn’t run out on Bobby Layne the Legend. That Bobby Layne will exist as long as there are spiraling footballs, as long as there are games to be won or lost on the last play.
“And, oh yes, as long as a bar is still open, a party still in progress and a pal to share them with.”
In 1985, that was more than enough to be noticed.
“In an era of big, gregarious personalities he was a quiet writer who preferred to be more of a craftsman than a showman,” his former colleague, Fort Worth Star-Telegram metro columnist Bud Kennedy, said. “He didn’t celebrate himself or draw attention to himself. He’s not a guy who would be on ESPN’s Sports Reporters.”
During his career he won multiple awards, including first place in “Sports Columns” by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors in 1981. In 1983, Wilkins was the first sports writer to win the Jack Douglas Sweepstakes AP award.
In 1994, TCU honored him as “Sports Writer/Columnist Supreme.”
By the time he retired, he figured he had written enough.
He used retirement to enjoy life. He also volunteered for Meals on Wheels.
While he left the Star-Telegram, there was a part of it that remained with him until the end.
It was at the Star-Telegram where he met Wanda. The couple was married for 46 years, and raised three children together.
Galyn had one son, Greg, and a daughter, Nancy. Wanda had one daughter, Dana.
Galyn loved to play golf. He enjoyed sailing and scuba diving.
“He would go scuba diving right up until the time he no longer could,” Wanda said Monday.
He and his son made a point of trying to visit the new Major League Baseball stadiums all over America.
“Some of the real highlights of my career were being able to sit with him and Frank Luksa and Blakie Sherrod at the same table in baseball spring training and just listen to them tell their stories,” Reeves said Monday. “It was like I was at the feet of Dallas/Fort Worth Mt. Rushmore with those guys.”
Galyn Wilkins its at a table again with his friends Dan Jenkins, Blackie Sherrod, Frank Luksa and the rest of those characters who told the sports stories for generations.
Galyn is the quiet one.
Service information
Greenwood Funeral Homes. Visitation: June 23, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Graveside service: June 24, 11 a.m.
