Randy Galloway Gallops into the Winner’s Circle

When Bob Ray Sanders dropped by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram city desk some weeks ago to borrow a laptop, the veteran columnist was told not to touch the single com-puter on hand-it was reserved for Randy Galloway.

“But Galloway doesn’t even work here yet!” Sanders protested.

Tough luck. Bob Ray.

Cowtown’s community newspaper (Sunday circulation: 342,000) is suddenly a changed place. The resolutely narrow-gauge daily, always strong on grass fires, mall openings, and homicides, appeared to have surprised even itself this summer when it lured the disgruntled Galloway from the much larger Dallas Morning News (Sunday circulation: 789,000). After being peremptorily jilted by another object of its ardor, Washington Post sportswriter (and Star-Telegram alumnus) Richard Justice, the paper wooed away the rambunctious columnist-who once posited a Baptist conspiracy to explain the delay in legalizing parimutuel horse tracks in Texas- with a rive-year contract worth in excess of $300,000 a year.

The figure is almost double what Galloway reportedly was paid in Dallas, and it is by far the most money any print journalist has ever dreamed of making in this market.

The deal astounded those familiar with the Star-Telegram’s historic parsimony, a tradition of pinching pennies when it comes to compensating quality help or pursuing important stories. ’”I think they did the smart thing,” says sportswriter Mike Shropshire, who covered baseball for the paper in the 1970s. “During my tenure nothing like that would have taken place. I paid more money in Blockbuster late fees last year than I made covering baseball for the Star-Telegram.”

The newspaper’s executive editor Jim Witt, die motive force behind the deal, also seemed a bit awe-struck at what he’d wrought.

“This is a great day for our newspaper,” Witt exulted in a July 30 staff memo, confirming a week’s worth of rumors that the biggest of the big feet on the local sports beat was jumping to Fort Worth after 32 years at the News, “Galloway, with the help of his top-rated radio show, has made himself into the most recognized sports brand in the Metroplex.”

According to Witt, Star-Telegram management has coveted Galloway’s luster for years-“a kind of a ’Wouldn’t it be nice?’ thing,” as Witt describes it. But the paper was emboldened to act only after word spread that a hard freeze was setting in between Galloway and his boss, Dave Smith, executive sports editor at the News.

Until recently, most of Galloway’s friends figured him for a lifer at the News, and so did he. “For 31 years,” says the columnist, “I woke up every morning saying, ’Let’s loot and burn for Belo [the paper’s parent company].’ And I did. I was their best soldier. I don’t think anyone would deny that.”

He also was widely respected for his Rangers beat reporting, as well as the frankness with which he expressed his often incendiary ideas as a columnist.

Grace of expression, on the other hand, has never been Galloway’s strong suit.

“A good editor has saved Randy’s butt many a time,” says Waller Robertson, a former sports editor at the News and one of die columnist’s admirers. “He knows that. 1 always told him he had to learn the English language, but so far he hasn’t needed to.”

Two years ago, Galloway’s relations with Dave Smith and Ralph Langer, executive vice president and editor at the News, began to chill.

The columnist faults a spirit of creeping corporatism at the paper-“The Morning News likes complete control over its employees, and that control includes squeezing you a little bit”-and believes his iconoclasm marked him as a dangerously loose cannon in a highly conformist organization.

Besides poking fun at Baptists, he was also one of former Cowboys coach Barry Switzer’s more determined detractors.

“I think they became uncomfortable with me,” he says. “I was pissing off certain segments of me readers. They liked that, but I think it also scared the hell out of them. They don’t like angry readers, and boy, I could make them angry.”

Another issue was Galloway’s popular radio show. Sports at Six, on WBAP 820-AM, for which he earns in excess of $250,000 a year. “I think they felt they had lost me because of it,” he says.

The flash point, however, was horse racing. Galloway is passionate about the sport, and together with five partners owns a string of thoroughbreds. All of a sudden, he says, the News discerned a potential conflict of interest between Galloway the columnist and Galloway the owner.

“They said they didn’t want me to write about horses. I said, ’That’s silly, but if that’s the way you want it, fine.’”

Dave Smith recalls the confrontations with his lead columnist in a different light. “We both had the same exact goal : to make this the best sports section possible,” Smith says. “When you have two people who are both very emotionally involved in the product, you’re going to have run-ins. That’s the nature of the business.”

When news of Galloway’s unhappiness reached the Star-Telegram, says Witt, the wistful “Wouldn’t it be nice?” became a marginally more emphatic, “Well, let’s at least make the effort.” Mede Nix, the paper’s Dallas bureau chief, was assigned to take soundings with Galloway’s close friend, Grand Prairie mayor Charlie England, whom Nix knew from her years working in the Star-Telegram\ Arlington newsroom.

“Do you think that Randy Galloway might be approachable?” Nix asked England over the telephone.

“I don’t think you can rule out anything with Randy,” the mayor replied.

David Ivory, a vice president at the Star-Telegram, cornered England at a cocktail gathering with much the same question. “Why don’t you give him a call?” England advised.

Before the paper did, however, a second attractive prospect popped up unexpectedly. Richard Justice, a 12 1/2-year veteran of the Washington Post sports pages, who also has worked for the Star-Telegram, the News, and the defunct Times-Herald, informed Witt that he was eager to return home to Texas.

“I spent two long days talking to them,” Justice recalls of the experience. “They’re terrific people. It would have been a wonderful place to work. [Managing editor] Kathy Vetter was outstanding, and Jim Witt’s great, too.”

Envisioning Justice as a kind of super GA (General Assignment) sports reporter and sometime fill-in for sports columnists Jim Reeves and Gil LeBreton, Witt offered him $78,500 and a generous relocation package to join the Star-Telegram staff, according to Justice, who declined the bid.

“Is there a dollar figure you will take to come?” Justice recalls Witt then asking. “I told him $90,000, and that’s what he offered.”

Although the figure was far below his Washington Post compensation. Justice accepted the offer in the third week of July. But just as the happy news was being communicated to the Star-Telegram staff, Justice changed his mind, deciding to stay in Washington alter all.

An annoyed Jim Witt tired off a letter- “the joke’s on me,” Justice recalls Witt writing-and then contacted Scott Monserud. the Star-Telegram’s downtown sports editor.

Monserud, in turn, telephoned sports columnist Gil LeBreton at home, catching LeBreton in the shower.

“Within two hours of learning that Justice had changed his mind, 1 got a voice-mail message from Monserud,” remembers LeBreton. “He said. “Jim Win has come up with this crazy idea”- 1 know he used those two words, ’crazy idea’-and that they wanted to talk to [Reeves] and me.”

At four o’clock that afternoon, LeBreton and Monserud met with Witt in the executive editor’s office. Jim Reeves was on the speaker phone from his truck, driving back from the Dallas Cowboys camp in Wichita Falls.

“We’ve decided to make a run at Randy Galloway.” Witt disclosed to the group. LeBreton, who had intuited what “crazy idea” had meant, stood still and said nothing. Reeves, long acquainted with Galloway, volunteered to contact the columnist.

“’There was this kind of awkward pause on Jim Wilt’s part,” says LeBreton. “Then he said. ’Would you do that?’”

The next night at The Ballpark in Arlington, as the Rangers played Tampa Bay. Galloway. Reeves, and LeBreton talked out the deal in a private box high above the field.

Galloway made it clear that he was interested, but only if his two buddies were okay with the idea. LeBreton and Reeves assured him they were. Then Galloway told them how much he was making at the News.

“We just busted out laughing,” LeBreton recalls. ’The notion that the Star-Telegram would pay that kind of money for a sportswriter was preposterous. We found it amusing. But we also felt that if it happened, it could only be a positive thing in the long run for us.

“Later that night, [Recves| and I spoke in the parking lot. Crickets were flying all over the place, landing on our shoulders. We knew that Galloway wouldn’t come for $200,000. We guessed it would have to be $250,000. Then we thought. ’And if he’s smart. he’ll turn that down, too.’”

“I knew basically what they pay at the Star-Telegram, and it wasn’t even close,” Galloway remembers. Yet he listened to the paper’s pitch. “1 loved what they had to say. I loved their plans for the paper. They were very honest. Then we started talking money. And quite frankly, that was fantastic. You don’t turn it down.”

All that was left were goodbyes at the News.

Galloway and Smith broadly agree on what transpired in their last face-to-face in Smith’s office. Smith told Galloway that he wished the columnist would reconsider but made no substantive offer. Galloway hadn’t expected him to.

“Everything being involved, I’m leaving. I just think it’s time to go,” he said to Smith,

“You know what?” the editor answered. “I don’t blame you.”

Since then, says Dave Smith, he’s heard from approximately 25 readers. “I’d say 50 percent of them are upset that he\s left. No big outcry.”

Over in Tarrant County, Jim Witt says the Star-Telegram saw a 2,500-paper bump in single-copy sales for Galloway’s debut on Sunday. Aug. 16. Another 1,000 hits were registered on the paper’s web site.

Inside the paper, Witt says, “I haven’t seen the newsroom (hat excited in a long time.” To help keep that warm feeling alive, the paper’s also tucking a little something extra into Jim Reeves’ and Gil LeBreton’s pay packets.

Randy Galloway, for his part, is ready to resume doing what has made him such a popular “brand,” in Jim Witt’s word.

’i don’t care what you call me or how mad you get or how much you disagree with me,” he says. “I pride myself on being a team player wherever I work. Now I’m ready to loot and burn for the Star-Telegram.”

In fact, the only person willing to publicly admit he’s unhappy with this story’s outcome is Richard Justice.

“I just sent Jim Witt a note,” he says. ’”Why didn’t you tell me you were hiring Galloway?” I asked him. I love traveling with Randy. You always get a Lincoln Town Car.”