Big Easy loses its storyteller

Published 7:11 am Sunday, August 14, 2016

Birmingham, I think it was. Maybe an NCAA basketball tournament regional. Anyway, a hearty brigade of us from the Louisiana sports media were sitting in a booth in the coffee shop, just off the hotel lobby.

It was just about the crack of dawn when the ever-cheerful presence of Peter Finney walked in, freshly scrubbed with the local morning paper tucked neatly under his arm. He spotted the recognizable faces in the booth.

He joined us, of course, with the usual bright-eyed greetings in that perfect N’Awlins accent before settling into the conversation.

But then, not much got by Pete. It took him only seconds to ascertain that this group was, in fact, finishing the night rather than beginning the day.

So the next move was pure Pete Finney. The unfolded newspaper slid subtly back up under his arm — he didn’t really say anything — but there was a smooth, effortless rise from the booth and … next thing you knew he was taking his coffee and newspaper in private.

We never even noticed.

But, polite as ever, he didn’t want to offend anyone, and he pulled off the smooth escape without fanfare.

We all got a good chuckle later as, in fact, outside his family he liked nothing better than to mingle with younger and younger sports writers.

He’d try not to be the center of attention and truly seemed oblivious to notion that we all idolized him.

Well, he wasn’t always so smooth.

You didn’t want to get in a car with Finney at the wheel. Thankfully it rarely happened. He usually caught a ride to games.

But there was a story they tell from the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where somehow caution took a holiday and Pete ended up pulling out of the hotel the wrong way down a one-way street, right in front of an officer.

When he emerged from the car, the only explanation he could come up with was:

“Hey, I’m from New Orleans.”

It sounded logical enough that he got off with a warning. It surprised nobody. But only Pete could pull that off.

Of course, there was little doubt that Finney was from New Orleans. He was New Orleans to the core. His whole being screamed New Orleans. He was New Orleans.

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to imagine New Orleans without him.

Maybe, despite the warnings, it’s hard to imagine that the best sports writer ever in Louisiana is gone.

Who will chronicle the next 70 years of Louisiana sports?

Finney died Saturday, age 88, at his home in the French Quarter, a few blocks from the home where he was born and raised just around the corner from St. Louis Cathedral.

His passing wasn’t a shock, but then again it was. Most of us who knew him just assumed he’d never age. He never seemed to in all the years I knew him.

Even in his last years, after almost seven decades of this rat race, he still had that wide-eyed enthusiasm for being at a big event, for getting any story.

His first byline in the old New Orleans States-Item came in 1945 shortly after he graduated from Jesuit High School.

His last column was two years ago, and he was still writing regularly as recently as four years ago.

He was well into his career, already an institution, when it was his byline that announced that New Orleans had landed the Saints in 1966. His columns nursed fans through the woebegone Aints years, often with subtle humor, and he was there when the Saints marched into Miami for the last of the 44 Super Bowls he covered, but surely the one he never thought he’d witness.

Some gray beards stay in the press box too long and end up annoying their readers with how much better things were in the old days.

Not Finney.

Oh, he had his moments transitioning to modern journalism.

When typewriters gave way to the forerunners of laptops — bulky, suitcase-sized things — Pete was shocked to learn that, after checking his at the airline baggage counter, he had little more than a pile of nuts, small bolts and broken fuses awaiting him at baggage claim on the other end.

Hey, I’m from New Orleans.

He never lived that one down.

But he never got dated. That was the amazing thing.

He was just as comfortable firing questions at Drew Brees as he had been when he spent a day with Billy Cannon, getting the step-by-step account of the Heisman Trophy winner’s LSU punt return from the night before in 1959.

But not only did Finney announce the Saints’ arrival, he may have staved off their departure.

He had already cut back some when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.

But when Saints’ owner Tom Benson started making rumblings about moving the team permanently out of the broken city due to the storm, Finney was ready and waiting with the power of the pen.

It was an ongoing story, full of twists and turns.

But every time Benson would posture this way or wonder aloud about some other obstacle, Finney would be lying in wait with another biting column.

For a while it was almost like each time Benson would stick his head up and try to float another trial balloon, Finney would fire back in newsprint and send Benson scurrying for cover again.

But that’s not really what I’ll remember Peter Finney for.

For all of his accomplishments, he was also the nicest man you could ever meet.

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com

Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at twitter.com/ScooterAmPress