Ed Daniels set the bar for TV prep coverage

By Ron Brocato, Sports
Clarion Herald

The New Orleans sports community lost a true friend with the death of WGNO TV Sports Director Ed Daniels.
            
A tireless champion and living encyclopedia of local sports news and history, Ed’s big heart stopped beating on Aug. 16, weeks after he suffered a heart attack in a Los Angeles hotel room while covering the New Orleans Saints preseason camp.
            
What I most lauded him for was that, while highly visible to the people to whom he ministered through his journalistic talent, Ed was never self-serving by calling attention to himself during the myriad of events with which he was affiliated. Rather quiet and unassuming, Ed displayed no ego; his dignity and finished product was his herald.
            
We first crossed paths in the early 1980s when Ed became sports director at KPLC in Lake Charles and I was on the sports staff of The Times-Picayune. Ours was a brief, but professional, collaboration. Our common interest was rooted in high school sports coverage.
            
During his stay in the lake area – and eventually, mine at the Lake Charles American Press (1992-97) – high school coverage dominated the sports pages and airwaves in that part of Louisiana. With nearly 40 high schools to talk and write about, we traveled the same back roads to such metropolises as Vinton to the west, Leesville to the north, South Cameron to the south and Iota eastward.
            
I saw Ed Daniels as a national-caliber newsman, overqualified, in my judgment, for such a small market. History proved this so in 1982 when Archbishop Rummel grad was hired as a sports reporter at WDSU-TV. Within a year, Ed was promoted to weekend sports anchor.
 
He eventually joined WGNO TV as a freelancer in 1991. Then, having paid his dues moving up the ranks, and gaining the approval of local viewers, he became a full-fledged member of the staff in 1993.
            
The electronic and print media have little in common: Television personalities have about 60-120 seconds per 30-minute show to report the sports news, while weather people have three to four segments to repeat the same weather forecast they had just expounded on a few minutes earlier around quirky, laughable injury attorney commercials.
            
What I appreciated about Ed was that we shared a common bond in our commitment to report, promote and perpetuate the high school sports spirit, not by one game at a time, but by one season at a time. And he found a clever way to accomplish this in 1993 when he created “Friday Night Football,” an hour-long show that highlights prep action from around the metro area.
            
When he came up with the idea, the “big thinkers” in the media told him that the concept would not do well in the New Orleans market where Saints and LSU football coverage dominated viewers’ interest in the fall months. But he soldiered on and proved his critics wrong.
            
Not only has “Friday Night Football” flourished, but the sports media on other local channels had to follow his lead or lose their share of the thousands of viewers who are also prep sports followers.
            
Using “Friday Night Football” as his template, Ed later expanded local coverage to further promote prep basketball and baseball through tournaments he helped arrange and co-host.
            
His passing leaves a void that will be difficult to fill. WGNO is hardly the No. 1 television market in New Orleans, but its Friday night show filled a valuable time slot for its advertisers and viewers. It has become a tradition for local high school game officials to flock to Oscar’s on Metairie Road after Fright night games to get glimpses of themselves on TV.
            
Although he was on the West Coast with his local media peers to report on the black and gold, he was also preparing for another successful year of his groundbreaking highlights show.
A devout Catholic who sang in the choir at St. Philip Neri Church, God beckoned him to begin the final journey far from home and his beloved parish.
            
Ed leaves behind a loving and supportive family, a group of admiring media comrades and grateful coaches, athletes and viewers whom he made the stars of his shows and beneficiaries of his coverage.
            
I will personally miss sharing a seat on the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame selection committee and exchanging opinions on the sidelines during games while his station’s cameras rolled to capture the action. When he asked a question, Ed listened attentively to the answer.
            
I was proud to call him a cohort and friend and to share a common profession and passion.

Ed, you set a standard for future media aspirants to follow. I salute you for a job well done that ended too soon.

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