R.I.P.: Memphis Sports Icon George Lapides

George Lapides

George Lapides, whose career as a sports journalist and sports executive spanned five decades and whose knowledge of the city's sport's history was unparalleled, died Friday morning after a three-year battle with a lung disease for which there is no cure.

According to The Commercial-Appeal, Lapides, 76, became sports editor and columnist of the old Memphis Press-Scimitar at age 27 and remained in the position until the former afternoon newspaper's closing in October 1983. He also served as athletic director at Rhodes College for a year and general manager of the Memphis Chicks, the minor league baseball team and Double-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. He spent 10 years as the station's sports editor for WREG-TV Channel 3, which announced his death.

He was most known as a longtime sports talk show host, beginning on WHER in the early 1970s, and maintaining a presence on the air until announcing his retirement from his show on WHBQ 560 AM May 31. When he signed off, he ended a 45-year run and the distinction of being the longest-running daily radio show in the country.

Shortly after being diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis — the same illness that struck actor Marlon Brando and former University of Alabama athletic director Mal Moore — Lapides told Geoff Calkins, a former radio co-host and sports columnist at The Commercial Appeal, that "sometimes I have a hard time believing it; I was the person who wanted to be the one exception and live forever."

Glenn Carver, sports director at WREG, said Lapides used his knowledge of the area and his network of contacts to enhance the station's coverage.

"He was a great man, a great journalist," Carver said. "I learned so much from him. I loved it when George came in to work with us (in 1995). It was a chance to work with a legend. I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss being able to talk to him."