Longtime Post-Dispatch sportswriter Stu Durando is set to retire
Sports writing, specifically at the Post-Dispatch, has been a family affair for Stu Durando.
He has been covering athletics for the paper for 28 years, many of those on a staff that included his wife, Elizabethe Holland. They sometimes traveled together for assignments, including covering two Super Bowls.
Their son, Bennett Durando, later was a recipient of the Post-Dispatch internship that is awarded and funded annually by the St. Louis chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America and is named after legendary former P-D baseball writer Rick Hummel. It is presented annually to a University of Missouri journalism student, and Bennett had the misfortune of receiving the honor in 2020, the pandemic-hampered year, when sports as well as life in general largely went on hold. But his dad was able to work with him some when they had common beats.
"Those were enjoyable times," Durando said of working alongside his wife and son.
But the run is about to end, as he is retiring effective Friday.
"Fulfilling," he calls his career, summing it up with the adage: "If you love what you're doing, it's not a job."
The primary assignments for Durando, 64, have been writing about college sports, with seven seasons reporting on the University of Illinois, two others in which he shared the paper's Mizzou beat and a pair of stints covering St. Louis University that have spanned 15 years.
He will turn the SLU beat over to Tom Timmermann, and the timing is good, because Timmermann had been covering the City SC soccer team, whose season ends Saturday. Meanwhile, the vastly retooled Billikens' basketball campaign tips off with an exhibition contest Friday at home against Rockhurst, and the regular season begins in a little over two weeks.
"There is no good time to lose a valuable member of your team," longtime Post-Dispatch sports editor Roger Hensley said. "I've worked with Stu for almost 25 years now, and you're not going to find many people as versatile as him. Just in recent years, in addition to covering the SLU beat Stu has jumped in to oversee our BattleHawks coverage, racing over at (World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison), the Ascension Charity Classic golf tournament ... and that's just the things that I'm rattling off the top of my head.
"Stu will be missed by the entire sports team here," Hensley added. "Quality, quality journalist ... and even more just a quality human being. I wish him nothing but the very best."
Durando is the president of United States Basketball Writers Association and says he will remain in that role despite his departure from the Post-Dispatch. And he does not intend to fully retire.
"I'm trying to figure out what my path might be, and I think there will be some options. I don't want to stop," he said, adding that he enjoys writing.
And his son continues in the family business. He is at The Denver Post, covering the NBA's Nuggets.
The elder Durando sums up his experiences.
"It's hard to complain about going to sporting events and writing about people," he said.
MU back in early slot
Mizzou's 19th-ranked football team (5-1) makes its third consecutive appearance in the early TV slot Saturday as the Tigers kick off their homecoming contest at 11 a.m. with their game against unranked Auburn (2-4) to be shown on ESPN. Dave Pasch (play-by-play), Dusty Dvoracek (analysis) and Taylor McGregor (reporter) have the broadcast assignments.
The Tigers were in that same block last week when they romped 45-3 at Massachusetts and two weeks ago for their 41-10 shellacking at Texas A&M.
They will move to a more high-profile time slot a week from Saturday when they play at No. 7 Alabama (5-1). That affair is to kick off at either 2:30, 3:15 or 6:30 p.m. and be televised by ABC or SEC Network. The time and network assignment will be announced Sunday.
Illini in spotlight
The Fighting Illini have made the big time.
Or, in CBS/Big Ten hype, the "B1g Time," a take on the conference's B1G logo, which takes some imagination from whoever sees it to figure out that the "1G" are intended to look like "10."
CBS, in its first season of featuring Big Ten football games in the showcase 2:30 p.m. Saturday kickoff block that it had devoted to the Southeastern Conference for decades, has Illinois in that slot for the next two weeks. The SEC package now exclusively is on ABC and other Disney-owned outlets.
The Illini, who are 5-1 and ranked 22nd, entertain No. 24 Michigan (4-2) this week and are at No. 2 Oregon (6-0) the following Saturday. CBS has its top crew assigned to those games — Brad Nessler (play-by-play), Gary Danielson (commentary) and Jenny Dell (reporter).
