By Justin Damasiewicz
For the last 42 years, residents of Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties have been reading Rick Anderson’s work in the pages of The Daily World. Rick would tell you that he has been blessed by the people in the community, but the truth is that the community has been blessed to have a dedicated sports writer like Rick.
“I am so fortunate for working with sources and fans in this area that have been so cooperative and nice to me,” Rick says in reflection. “That’s something that sets this area apart from larger cities. I have very, very seldom had any kind of adversarial relationship with any of the people I have covered. I really appreciate the fact that the community has been so cooperative. I feel like I have been blessed working in an area that has appreciated what I have tried to do for so long.”
After graduating from the University of Washington, then spending one year in the Naval Reserves, Rick accepted a job with The Daily World and moved to Grays Harbor County in May 1972. The Seattle native initially worked as a news reporter who covered some sports. Rick became the sports editor in 1977.
“Coming from a big city, a lot of times a small area wouldn’t be a good fit, but it was for me,” Rick comments. “I enjoy living in a smaller community and working in a community type newspaper, and I have enjoyed the people I have worked with. I have gotten to do a lot of things that I wouldn’t have gotten to do elsewhere, like write movie reviews every once in a while. I’m also on the editorial board. I couldn’t see those things happening at a larger paper.”
In April, Rick announced that he will retire as sports editor in December. Rick hopes to stay on with The Daily World part-time as a sports correspondent so he can continue to do the part of the job he loves the most: Covering games and writing columns.
“Obviously, at 65, you start thinking about [retirement],” says Rick. “The determining factor was that the amount of hours I had to work finally caught up with me. A lot of times, Sunday has been the only day I can take off. Toward the end of the winter sports season last year I realized that I really needed to start scaling back, because I got really physically tired. It just seemed like the right time for me.”
Rick notes that he feels very fortunate to have worked with his colleague, Daily World sports writer Rob Burns. According to Rick, Burns is the ideal fit to compliment his weaknesses, such as covering soccer games, page makeup and the use of new technology.
In 2012, Rick received the Silver Helmet award from the Washington State Football Coaches Association for his years of covering high school sports. He has also won the Jim Redding Award from the Washington State High School Baseball Coaches Association.
Earlier this year, Rick was inducted into Aberdeen High School’s Athletic Hall of Fame along with former Daily World writer, the late Ray Ryan. Rick is well known for injecting a bit of humor in his writing, which is a trait that he said he picked up in part from Ryan.
“John Hughes was the city editor and Ray Ryan was the sports editor when I first got here, and John became the editor soon afterwards,” Rick says. “The two of them were pretty much my role models, and both of those people liked to inject a little bit of humor into their writing. I pretty much studied those guys in terms of how they structured stories.”
“You can’t really imitate anybody’s style, and if you try to you’ll usually fail, but I really studied how they approached and structured storied and tried to pattern the way I cover things after those two people,” he continues.
Hughes, who played a role in Rick’s promotion to sports editor, describes Rick as a “big-league sportswriter.”
“Rick Anderson is the hardest working, most dedicated journalist I’ve ever met in my 50-year career as a writer,” says Hughes. “Grays Harbor has been so lucky to have him. He had many opportunities to work for bigger papers. What sets Rick apart is his encyclopedic knowledge of sports, his painstaking attention to detail, and objectivity.”
People who have worked closely with Rick would likely tell you about his remarkable memory and nearly unreadable handwriting. Longtime friend and former co-worker Jane Goldberg believes that both are assets that have helped make Rick successful.
“Many people in Harbor sports will marvel at Rick’s erratic, mysterious, possibly illegible penmanship and for many that unique skill sets Rick apart,” Goldberg says. “For me, however, it is his ability to remember minute facts, scores, plays, games, dates, weather during a particular game, etc. His mind is incredibly nimble at recalling sports details and I marvel at that.”
“Here’s an exclusive for you,” Rick says with a chuckle. “It’s not shorthand. It’s about 80-percent sloppy penmanship, and I’ve always had problems with that. When I first started writing cursive in elementary school, I always got poor grades. Fortunately I can read it, but I’ve always said that if I drop dead between the stadium and the office there’s no way anybody could reconstruct what I’m writing.”
“Rick is a very kind, caring kind of reporter, more concerned about the feelings of the players and coaches he writes about than going for the headlines,” Goldberg adds. “He writes a very moving human interest story as easily as he reports a high school basketball game.”
Thank you, Rick, for your dedicated years of sports coverage.
