Time to take a run to honor a friend who left us too soon
Friday, November 19, 2010 | Football, Soccer, Scott Carter
A year ago today I got one of those calls you never want to get.
I was at my home office in Tampa writing a story when a colleague called to see if I had heard the news. I had not.
He told me that Steve Ellis, the longtime Florida State beat writer for the Tallahassee Democrat, had died.
Steve, 54, had suffered a massive heart attack the previous week. I was splitting my time between Tampa and Tallahassee at the time, so four days before he died, my wife, daughter and I stopped by to see Steve in the hospital while I was in town.
As usual, he was upbeat, telling stories and being Steve. He looked tired and frail, but overall he was in good spirits and I left the hospital that day thinking he was in for a long recovery but that, knowing him, he would be back at work sooner than later.
Four days later Steve passed away. On the night before he died, sounding restless in his hospital bed, he called to check in and left a voice-mail message on my cell phone. I never had a chance to call him back.
Click here to read a blog I wrote a year ago about Steve's death. For the record, I did go and take that physical and thankfully, all checked out well.
Before returning to UF in September to take a job as senior writer for GatorZone.com, I spent most of the previous 12 years at The Tampa Tribune covering various sports beats, including a four-year stint writing about FSU.
With the annual Florida-FSU game coming up next weekend in Tallahassee, I've been thinking about Steve a lot lately. It will be the first game I've ever covered at Doak Campbell Stadium without him occupying his usual seat in the press box.
I promise not to mention FSU too many times on this blog, but I hope you don't mind me making an exception today. If you have read much about the Seminoles over the past 25 years leading up to the annual Gators-Seminoles clash, you have probably read plenty of Steve Ellis stories.
Thanks to some information passed on by Democrat sports editor Jim Lamar via Twitter, I've decided to run in the inaugural Steve Ellis 5K Run on May 21 in Tallahassee. Steve was a college runner at Clemson. I enjoy running even less than listening to a Backstreet Boys' song, but it's a great way to honor Steve and help raise money for a good cause.
Thankfully I have a few months to train.
Also, the FSU Foundation has established “The Steve Ellis Memorial Scholarship,'' which “aims to help foster and assist future professionals in the field of broadcast and sports reporting'' according to an FSU press release.
The goal is to raise at least $25,000 so that the scholarship can be permanently endowed and provide a young FSU student an opportunity to break into sports journalism. If anyone out there would like to help, or have FSU friends who might be interested in contributing, you can help out by submitting a donation here: https://foundation.fsu.edu/donate.
Or you can mail a check to:
FSU Foundation – Steve Ellis Memorial Scholarship Fund
2010 Levy Avenue
PO Box 3062739
Tallahassee, FL 32306-2739
**Please include the fund number with your gift: F 07357 (Steve Ellis Memorial Scholarship)
Thanks again for allowing some FSU talk here on a Gator blog.
