Bruce Phillips, former Raleigh Times sports editor with knack for storytelling, dies

Bruce Phillips took his work as a sports editor very seriously, but he never took sports or himself too seriously.

It was fun and games as he rolled cheap paper into a manual typewriter and crafted a story that could make you cry, double you up in laughter, infuriate you or make you prouder than if you hit the winning free throw with no time left.

Phillips became the youngest sports editor of a major daily newspaper in North Carolina in 1956 when he was hired as a sportswriter for The Raleigh Times, right after graduating from East Carolina and the sports editor quit the next week. Over the next 35 years, he became one of the most beloved sports writers in the state.

Phillips, who later was a sports columnist for The News & Observer, died Dec. 8. The Raeford native was 85 years old.

“He was a very colorful writer and always was able to put some levity in his stories,” said A.J. Carr, a former News & Observer sports writer.

“Bruce had a great sense of humor, and it showed in his writing. He could entertain you and inform you in the same sentence. That is not easy, but he made it look easy.”

Phillips had a wealth of knowledge about North Carolina sports history. When he started his career at the Raleigh Times, an afternoon paper, he talked to legendary basketball coaches Everett Case of N.C. State and Frank McGuire of the University of North Carolina and N.C. State football coach Earle Edwards.

He wrote about all-America basketball players like Ronnie Shavlik of N.C. State, Lennie Rosenbluth of UNC and Len Chappell of Wake Forest.

Later, he wrote about UNC basketball coach Dean Smith, N.C. State basketball coaches Norm Sloan and Jim Valvano; football coaches Bill Dooley of UNC; and Duke football coaches Bill Murray and Mike McGee.

N.C. State basketball legend David Thompson was a favorite, and Phillips raved about the defense of UNC roundballer Bobby Jones. Phil Ford and Monte Towe, rival guards, were other favorites and hometown footballer Willie Burden and Wolfpack quarterback Roman Gabriel were fodder for him.

He covered the Dixie Classic. He covered the first NFL exhibition game ever held in North Carolina and spent many nights at Dorton Arena watching the American Basketball Association’s Carolina Cougars with Jumpin’ Joe Caldwell and the Kangaroo Kid Billy Cunningham.

A natural storyteller

He loved to tell stories. One of his best was about cornering Alabama football coach Bear Bryant at the downtown Hudson-Belk at a book signing one morning, rushing back to the paper, writing a wonderful story in about 20 minutes to meet a noon deadline and watching the story instantly disappear when the computer, one of the first at the paper, mysteriously crashed. He hated computers.

One of his most memorable stories was about the interview he didn’t do. Phillips spent a day trying to find Chicago Bear linebacker Dick Butkus, who was at Duke meeting with doctors about an injured knee. He had agreed to the interview. “Just find me. I’ll be seeing the knee doctors,” Butkus supposedly said.

Phillips was always one doctor behind. Everybody, it seemed, had seen Butkus, but no one knew where he was.

Phillips’ last line in the story said that it was good that he hadn’t found Butkus, one of the toughest and greatest linebackers in NFL history. By the end of the day, Phillips said he had planned to kick Butkus in the knee.

Once in desperation, a movie theater manager called Phillips. The theater manager said he had called everyone else at the paper about a potential story. Was there anyone in sports who was willing to come talk to Richard Crenna, a movie star who was in town to promote his latest movie? Phillips went and somehow tied the cowboy movie and Crenna interview into a darn good sports column.

Perhaps his most famous story was the turtle soup story about Alton “J.B.” Thorpe, who worked at the N&O near the sports department, attempting to make turtle soup. The story was great. The soup was not.

Golf was Phillips’ passion. He had polio as a child and always walked with a limp. No one could ever really explain it, but several golf pros who worked with him said that something about his posture and his bad leg gave him a naturally great golf swing. On a good day, he’d shoot near par.

He was totally in his element covering The Masters. Going to Augusta excited him as nothing else, not even the ACC Basketball Tournament back when only the winner advanced to the playoffs. The color of the azaleas and the sounds of Rae’s Creek populated his stories, and he would prayerfully describe the Amen Corner, holes Nos. 11, 12 and 13. He was on a first-name basis with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and other greats.

Coaching writers

Phillips also had a knack for developing writers. He hired and trained writer Caulton Tudor and nurtured this writer, whose 48-year career included being inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame.

Phillips once said the basics of sports writing were having a car, knowing how to type and drinking liquor. He later amended that to include sitting at a typewriter and poring a little bit of your soul into every story.

He taught journalism in a frank way. He once told Tudor, who was already 15 minutes past deadline, not to worry about getting the story out on time. “Take your time, Baby. Make it just as good as you can. I want you to like it … because if I don’t get it in the next two minutes you will be the only person to ever read it,” Phillips told him.

He taught the writers they could care about games and stories, but they shouldn’t care (very much) about who won. He admitted violating his own rule with N.C. State players David Thompson and Monte Towe during their national basketball championship season in 1973-74. “I got too close to those guys,” he said years later. But he didn’t seem to regret it.

A.C. Snow, the longtime editor of The Raleigh Times, called Phillips a wordsmith. Snow would sometimes come to Phillips for a simile — something like, “Someone’s chances were as good as a paper cat chasing an asbestos dog through a forest fire.”

Snow once had to witness an execution at Central Prison and persuaded Phillips to go with him.

Minutes before the execution, Phillips asked Snow, “Snowball, what in hell are we doing here?” Snow had no answer, and 50 years later Phillips still wrestled with what he witnessed.

On his own terms

Phillips left the paper in 1991. When the Times and the N&O merged, Phillips suddenly had a sports editor over him. He thought it was time to go when he was assigned to cover the Raleigh Icecaps, a minor league hockey team, and to travel to Greenville a couple of days a week to cover East Carolina football.

The first hockey game he covered, he got up to leave after the second period. Two halves, right? Nope. Not in hockey. And is it always this cold?

He called it a career. He planned to write some more. Freelance. Write about what he wanted to write about. Write lots about golf. He had plenty of offers, but he never got around to taking any of the assignments.

He’d rather shag, and he was very good at the coastal dance.

He lost the ability to dance following a fall a few years ago, and soon his golf swing was gone forever as some of his polio symptoms returned.

He slipped away quietly on Sunday morning.

A memorial service will be held Dec. 27 from 2 to 4 p.m., at the City of Oaks Funeral Home and Cremations.

This story was originally published December 10, 2019 at 3:46 PM.