'He's in my starting 5': Remembering John Rowe, longtime sports writer and editor for The Record
Circumstances sent John Rowe from Lyndhurst, New Jersey, to Northwestern Oklahoma State College in Alva, Oklahoma, in 1963. The tiny town and the small college in its midst would never be the same. And neither would John.
Rumors were that John, a 6-4 basketball star at Lyndhurst, was on his way to a major school in the South, maybe the University of South Carolina, to play basketball, but a coaching change resulted in a last-minute withdrawal of a scholarship offer. So he ended up with two of his Lyndhurst classmates at the small NAIA school about 200 miles west of Tulsa and 150 miles north of Oklahoma City.
He graduated four years later, having never played varsity basketball, but having served as sports editor and editor of the school newspaper and the sports information director for the college. Soon after he graduated, he came home to Lyndhurst and joined the Sports Department at the Herald-News a month later. He spent two years in the Army, writing for Stars and Stripes, before returning to the Herald-News in 1969.
John Rowe died on Dec. 31, 2021, at Hackensack University Medical Center at the age of 76 after battling illness for several years.
John went from the Herald-News to The Record in the beginning of 1973, staying there until his formal retirement on February 21, 2016. He then returned to help out with coverage of the Jets, Giants and college sports before the COVID pandemic led to his final stories being written in April 2020. For more than 15 years, until his first retirement in 2016, he also served as a sports assignment editor and as deputy sports editor.
Fittingly, his final stories published in The Record, on April 24 and 25 in 2020, covered the Jets draft, a commentary on how the NBA's G League would not harm college basketball and a commentary on Alex Rodriguez's day-to-day impact if his group was successful in purchasing the New York Mets.
John Rowe could do it all, cover any sport you could name and do it well, at any level, from high schools to colleges to every major professional team sport, with a little horse racing on the side.
Former Record Local Sports Editor Jeff Roberts called him "the best editor I ever had" and marveled at his ability to tell a story, both in print and orally.
"His stories were original and hilarious, even the ones you could print,'' said Roberts. "We've lost a lot of good people recently, but this one really hurts.''
John covered such iconic events as the NBA Championships, the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl, the Kentucky Derby and the NCAA Final Four. He was a member of the Heisman Memorial Trophy Committee and a lifetime honorary member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. In 2012, he appeared in the ESPN Films documentary of Chuck Wepner, "The Real Rocky."
And he had the best connections of anyone in the North Jersey area. He had stopped covering high school sports decades earlier, but if there was a big event in Bergen County and he wasn't on assignment somewhere else, John would be in the stadium, at the field or in the gym.
John is survived by his mother, Annie (nee Mullins), his nephew, John (JP), and his wife, Gosia Rowe, and his great-nephew, Daniel. He was predeceased by his father and his sister, Sheila.
A funeral service will be held Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. at Ippolito-Stellato Funeral Home at 425 Ridge Road in Lyndhurst. Interment will be at Hillside Cemetery. Friends will be received Wednesday from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to St. Benedict's Prep, 520 Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd., Newark NJ 07102.
Paul Schwartz, sports writer
The biggest thrill for a high school sports writer like me wasn't just getting a good story that no one else had, but getting it before John Rowe knew about it. And that wasn't easy. He knew everyone, everywhere and every place they might be.
That probably came from his father, Walter "Hawk" Rowe, a lifelong Lyndhurst resident, who was the chief clerk for the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, where he worked until his death in 1981 and who served six terms on the Lyndhurst Board of Education and wrote a sports column for the Herald-News and the Lyndhurst Commercial Leader for many years.
My fondest memory of John was his ability to keep the scorebook AND run the clock for many years at one of the great pickup basketball tournaments there ever was, the Hawk Rowe Memorial tournament. It was where some of the best basketball I ever watched was played. You never knew who might walk in the door of Lyndhurst High School and play for one of the teams in search of a trophy, a great post-tournament celebration at a local bar (most likely the late lamented Wee Willie's in town) and the pride of a well-played game.
It might be an NBA player like Tony Campbell or Rory Sparrow; a high school star to be; a college standout; or just a 40-year-old guy so out of shape he didn't look as if he could get up and down the floor three times — but boy could he pass.
The games were great, the money earned went to a scholarship for a Lyndhurst athlete and there was John, making sure every moment was a tribute to his dad — with little knowledge of how many players (and volunteers) were there as a tribute to him.
As a result, John has many other unrelated survivors, all fellow sports lovers, who will gather when it's safe to celebrate his life the way it should be celebrated — by telling stories about John and what he meant to all of us. Arrangements are pending.
Greg Mattura, sports writer
John Rowe gave more of himself to his job — more hours of his life — than any person I have worked with in the Sports Department in my 33 years at The Record.
John covered everything, from high school sports to Major League Baseball to the NFL. He was our college basketball and football expert, and his weekly “10 burning questions in college football,” was a reader favorite.
John rose to the title of deputy sports editor. And during the 1990s, when our department was busy earning plenty of awards, he was on many days, weeks — even months — our true sports editor. He had a handle on just about everything, including high school sports.
When I worked a desk job for two miserable years in the late 1990s, John was the first person in Sports to arrive at the office in the morning. There he was at his desk, with a coffee and doughnut, reading the paper from cover to cover. That night, he might cover a college or pro game.
He knew more about the sports scene in North Jersey and beyond than anyone. He was old-school. He was gruff. He rarely yielded a compliment. But of all the people I’ve worked with in the Sports Department since my arrival in 1989, John Rowe is in my starting five.
Daniel Sforza, executive editor
John Rowe was the backbone of The Record's sports pages for decades. His keen insight and limitless knowledge made him a legend among sports journalists. What he added to our coverage made it the powerhouse sports journalism operation in New Jersey.
John and I would always have a chat at the beginning of college basketball season. Invariably, I would be overly optimistic about my alma mater, Villanova. And John, with his spot-on analysis and his innate knowledge of the game, would always bring me down to earth. I'll miss those conversations.
Deirdre Sykes O'Neil, former executive editor
John Rowe had an encyclopedic knowledge of New Jersey sports, from the exploits of an obscure kid pitcher to the stats and lore of players and coaches on decades of high school and college teams. He knew it all. John didn’t need to look it up — it was all in his head.
He covered pro teams, too, with the same kind of precision and perspective. And don’t even get him started on horse racing! They don’t make ’em like John Rowe anymore. He was one of a kind and both loved and respected by us all.
Dave Rivera, sports editor
I worked side by side with John Rowe as an assignment editor for 15 years at The Record, but I viewed it more as an education for me. John was always one step ahead of the news, and he taught me what the next day's story should be. He understood exactly what the sports fan wanted to know.
And it seemed like John knew everybody in the history of sports. He would share the most entertaining stories about athletes, coaches and executives from "back in the day." He had a million of them. John was the best storyteller of all.
John Balkun, former sports editor
Most people will remember John as a sports writer and columnist who could do it all, or as an assignment editor and writing coach who was a mentor to so many young talents for decades; but I'll remember him most as a friend and colleague of almost 30 years, whose insight and keen wit were an inspiration every day we worked together.
Mark Ruskie, former assistant sports editor
I first met John Rowe when Hasbrouck Heights football was the only game in town on fall Friday nights in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Members of the Herald-News and The Record sports staffs would hang out on the sidelines whether we were covering the game or not.
We played softball together on the Sports Department team and pickup basketball games on Saturday mornings at Saddle River Day School against the SRDS varsity and at Eastern Christian against some of the varsity and coaches.
John saved my earned run average many a time with running catches up the gaps, particularly at Pascack Brook County Park in Westwood, where there was no fence. On the basketball court you knew if you passed the ball to JR, you weren't getting the ball back.
We even played a touch football game against the SRDS varsity back when the Rebels played in a six-man private school football league. We went up there thinking it was going to be a pickup game, and when we got there we found the entire school waiting to see the game. SRDS Athletic Director Lee Wilson even hired officials, and we used first-down chains. Somehow we didn't embarrass ourselves. We lost, but the final score was only about 21-13.
Another memory was the day John hit the daily double. or maybe it was the trifecta, at both Monmouth and The Meadowlands. Racing writer Jenny Kellner, who placed the Meadowlands bet for him, had to be escorted to her car at The Big M that night with JR's big winnings.
RIP, my friend.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: John Rowe: The Bergen Record NJ legend has died
