I'm going to admit that I wasn't really that close to Sean. We didn't exchange Christmas cards or anything like that.
But I had several opportunities to rub shoulders with Sean and I really respected him as a sportscaster and a guy with a friendly personality.
Many of you will know Sean only as "the sportscaster in the wheelchair" and that's unfortunate. Sean was paralyzed at 15 by a high school football injury when as a skinny defensive back he tried to make a tackle and made it with his head down- which was the way tackling was taught then- but also led to spinal cord injuries. We now know to tackle with your head up.
But we shouldn't feel sorry for Doherty. We should really admire him for not letting such a life-changing event ruin his life. He found a very successful career in sports by overcoming his handicap.
If you went to a Duquesne game- Sean was there. Not just hoops. I remember running into him for the first time in a few years on an elevator at Three Rivers Stadium after a Pitt-Duquesne baseball game. We started talking like old friends.
And maybe we were.
Because of this- I believe Sean probably had the greatest wealth of knowledge of Duquesne sports in Pittsburgh. I realize Duquesne- despite their improving basketball team and increased competitiveness in other sports- often is an afterthought in local sports circles- if a thought at all.
But Sean had this way of talking about Duquesne and making you realize this was a Division I NCAA athletic program with a fine history and as such deserved to be counted as a major sports entity in Pittsburgh. He didn't do it as a homer. He did it as a man with knowledge who conveyed that knowledge and sense of importance to you and, I'm sure, his many listeners at WDUQ.
He was great. I could kid him about broadcasting on "Left Wing Public Radio" and he wouldn't get offended- he'd go with it.
Another time we got into a conversation about Ray Goss- the Voice of the Dukes. Evidently a past executive at one time or another was considering replacing Goss.
Thankfully he didn't- but to Sean- the mere mention of replacing Goss- one of the best basketball play-by-play men in any market- was akin to Westinghouse firing Bob Prince.
"He's a legend! A LEGEND!" Sean said, and trust me, to Duquesne fans Goss most certainly is.
So should Doherty. In addition to his WDUQ sports reports, he provided analysis on many high school playoff telecasts and wrote a very memorable newspaper article in I believe the Pittsburgh Press (could have been the P-G, but that's not really important right now) back in '91 about spinal cord injuries when Mike Utley of the Detroit Lions was paralyzed.
That helped form some of my views about football and running up the score- though Sean always said the play he was injured on was legitimate. Still, I just got it in my head of some other skinny 15 year old suffering the same injury in a 50-9 game because the winning team was trying to run up the score and how the injury factor in football must be respected to be prevented.
We really lost one of the very best in Sean.
And if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to raise a toast to him now.
But I had several opportunities to rub shoulders with Sean and I really respected him as a sportscaster and a guy with a friendly personality.
Many of you will know Sean only as "the sportscaster in the wheelchair" and that's unfortunate. Sean was paralyzed at 15 by a high school football injury when as a skinny defensive back he tried to make a tackle and made it with his head down- which was the way tackling was taught then- but also led to spinal cord injuries. We now know to tackle with your head up.
But we shouldn't feel sorry for Doherty. We should really admire him for not letting such a life-changing event ruin his life. He found a very successful career in sports by overcoming his handicap.
If you went to a Duquesne game- Sean was there. Not just hoops. I remember running into him for the first time in a few years on an elevator at Three Rivers Stadium after a Pitt-Duquesne baseball game. We started talking like old friends.
And maybe we were.
Because of this- I believe Sean probably had the greatest wealth of knowledge of Duquesne sports in Pittsburgh. I realize Duquesne- despite their improving basketball team and increased competitiveness in other sports- often is an afterthought in local sports circles- if a thought at all.
But Sean had this way of talking about Duquesne and making you realize this was a Division I NCAA athletic program with a fine history and as such deserved to be counted as a major sports entity in Pittsburgh. He didn't do it as a homer. He did it as a man with knowledge who conveyed that knowledge and sense of importance to you and, I'm sure, his many listeners at WDUQ.
He was great. I could kid him about broadcasting on "Left Wing Public Radio" and he wouldn't get offended- he'd go with it.
Another time we got into a conversation about Ray Goss- the Voice of the Dukes. Evidently a past executive at one time or another was considering replacing Goss.
Thankfully he didn't- but to Sean- the mere mention of replacing Goss- one of the best basketball play-by-play men in any market- was akin to Westinghouse firing Bob Prince.
"He's a legend! A LEGEND!" Sean said, and trust me, to Duquesne fans Goss most certainly is.
So should Doherty. In addition to his WDUQ sports reports, he provided analysis on many high school playoff telecasts and wrote a very memorable newspaper article in I believe the Pittsburgh Press (could have been the P-G, but that's not really important right now) back in '91 about spinal cord injuries when Mike Utley of the Detroit Lions was paralyzed.
That helped form some of my views about football and running up the score- though Sean always said the play he was injured on was legitimate. Still, I just got it in my head of some other skinny 15 year old suffering the same injury in a 50-9 game because the winning team was trying to run up the score and how the injury factor in football must be respected to be prevented.
We really lost one of the very best in Sean.
And if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to raise a toast to him now.