You were in good company when sharing press row with Irwin Smallwood in the Greensboro Coliseum for an ACC basketball tournament game, or in the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium, or looking over Groves Stadium at Wake Forest or following the golfing legends in the old Quonset hut each spring at Augusta National Golf Club for The Masters.
He came to know the legends of every sport — from Everette Case to Norm Sloan and Jim Valvano; from Frank McGuire to Dean Smith to Michael Jordan; from Vic Bubas to Mike Krzyzewski to the golfing legends of Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, all who paid calls on the old Greater Greensboro Open at Sedgefield Country Club.
Their stories and their championships were Irwin Smallwood’s stories to tell in the Greensboro Daily News, where Irwin Smallwood worked with the newspaper from 1953 until his retirement in 1993.
“Irwin really represented the best of a long-gone era — perhaps the Golden Age,” says Nancy McCleary, the former Fayetteville Observer newswoman now with The Sanford Herald. “He represented the best of a long-gone era of journalism.”
McCleary knew Smallwood from childhood, when her father, the late Moses Crutchfield, worked as a sports reporter and later a news copyeditor with the newspaper for 40 years. McCleary has remained close with Smallwood throughout her life and journalism career. He followed her career, always wanting to know how she was getting along and about the news stories she was telling, too.
“Irwin was the quintessential sports fan,” McCleary says. “He formed long-lasting personal relationships with his colleagues. He was widely respected well beyond the sports community and beyond with his work in journalism and as a person. Irwin was a champion for social justice in journalism and as an individual. Irwin did get older, but even at the age of 98, he could rattle off names, dates and events dating back to the 1940s. He was a remarkable man in so many ways. His legacy in seeking justice for those who were wronged, standing up for his beliefs or what would be best for the community.”
He may have been diminutive in physical stature, but Irwin Smallwood towered tall. He believed in and advocated for civil rights of all. He challenged the Augusta National Golf Club in 1984 for denying female reporters access to the men’s locker room at The Masters, and excluding them from the men’s only restaurant. Masters officials a year later rescinded the long-standing club policy for Masters Week.
He cherished a final round Sunday at Augusta National, where fans and media eagerly awaited the golfers who would be challenged on Amen Corner of the back nine. But on those many given Sundays of spring among the azaleas, you would find Irwin Smallwood and his wife attending Sunday morning services at the large, brick Baptist church along Washington Road.
He was devout in his faith and a lifetime member of his beloved Congregational United Church of Christ, where he was a lay leader, Sunday school teacher and voice in the choir. His faith in his Lord and savior never was compromised.
“What I want to get across is that Irwin wasn’t just a legend in journalism,” McCleary says. “He was a legend in the Greensboro community. I truly am so lucky to have known him for my 65 years on the planet. Irwin was as good of a father to his daughter, Bryn, as he was at everything else.”
From copyboy to the executive offices
Irwin Smallwood wore all of the hats at the Greensboro Daily News, from copyboy as a teenager to sportswriter, associate sports editor, executive sports editor, city editor, managing editor and deputy executive editor.
You’ll find his fingerprints and footprints and DNA from the Greensboro Coliseum to the media center at Sedgefield Country Club that bears his name and where the PGA Tour Wyndham Championship annually unfolds, and where in 1953 in a smoke-filled room of seven university leaders formed the Atlantic Coast Conference. Scroll the list of the Carolina Golf Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame and the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame, and you’ll find Irwin Smallwood’s name.
Irwin Smallwood died March 9.
He was 98.
He was old school and a part of that Golden Age of print journalism that demanded our best, because our least just wouldn’t do. The games at Carmichael Auditorium and Reynolds Coliseum mattered, but they were not the only sports events in town.
“I worked for Irwin in 1978, when I was the slot man for the Daily News sports department,” says Tommy Horton, a sports reporter for the old Fayetteville Times from 1973 to 1977. “He was easy to work for and he only got mad at me once when I put a North Carolina A&T story on page two of the Sunday sports pages. I never made that mistake again. Slowly, but surely, all of our newspaper friends are disappearing.”
Epilogue
Irwin Smallwood was more than an editor.
He was a teacher.
He was a mentor to cub reporters finding their way. He didn’t just take time to care. He made the time to care, and old sports reporters Larry Keech, Helen Ross, Gary McCann, Bob Bevan, Meyer Anthony, Bill Haas, Tony Barnhart, Tom Einstein and Drexel Ball probably would tell you so.
“Irwin Smallwood’s legacy will live on in the people he mentored, helping them achieve their potential,” Nancy McCleary says. “How can you be sad about his death? Irwin had the most remarkable life. I am so blessed to have known Irwin Smallwood.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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