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When I moved to Wyoming for my first newspaper job, Joe Tait was thrilled.
At least, it sure seemed that way at the time. And I’ll be honest, it likely had less to do with me than the fact Joe finally had a connection to Wyoming.
That was back in 1994, when I took a position as a one-man sports staff at the Rawlins Daily Times.
Rawlins is a town of 9,000 (on a good day) in the middle of Nowhere, USA. I wrote about such things as high school swimming and small-town rodeos. I took my own pictures and ran my own film in the dark room. I put my own stories and pictures on the pages, and occasionally even delivered the papers myself.
It was the bush leagues of journalism.
But every so often, I mailed the papers to friend and Cleveland sports columnist Terry Pluto at his request. Not sure why, but Terry read those copies of the Daily Times and then passed them along to Joe.
Terry and Joe couldn’t seem to get enough. I say that because if I went more than a couple months without sending the papers, Terry would call. “Joe wants more newspapers,” Terry would say, and I’d mail out another bundle.
This was a big deal to me. There I was, a small-time newspaper guy working in one of the smallest cities in the nation’s least-populated state, sending my crummy little columns to the Voice of the Cavaliers.
I learned that Joe never considered himself the voice with a capital V. As Terry said in the tribute to Joe that airs Wednesday on FOX Sports Ohio after the Cavs game, Joe’s simply a small-time guy who hit the big time.
I first met Joe when I was the editor of a monthly Northeast Ohio newspaper called “Cleveland Pro Stuff.” I was fresh out of college and had no idea what I was doing. Joe wrote a regular column for the paper. I paid him a measly 35 bucks a month.
But even as a 23-year-old, I was smart enough to realize Joe wasn’t in it for the money. He just enjoyed writing the column. Forget the fact it was run by some kid he had never met, or that Cleveland Pro Stuff had a circulation of maybe 1,500.
I almost always delivered Joe’s checks by hand. Not because Joe ever asked when he was getting paid, or because he wouldn’t let me pay him by mail. It was just that I wanted to visit with the man who, to me, was the Cavs.
During my youth, the Cavs were usually in flux. Their owner was Ted Stepien. Their stars went by names like Foots Walker, World B. Free and Edgar Jones.
They once drafted a couple of guys because their last names rhymed (John Bagley and Dave Magley). So, like most basketball fans in Northeast Ohio, I found Joe to be the one constant, the one rock of sanity representing the Cavs of my youth.
For me, meeting him was better than meeting the players, or key members of the front office, or the men who actually owned the team.
But whenever I delivered Joe’s measly payment, we rarely talked about the NBA. If we did, I sure don’t remember it.
Most of our conversations were centered around horses and trains. I also remember him telling me, and more than once, that he wanted to retire in Evanston, a small Wyoming town that bordered on Utah. I have never told Joe this, but his fondness for Wyoming is a big reason why I applied for a job there in the first place.
More than a voice
I always appreciated Joe’s call of the game but never realized how good he was until I moved to Wyoming. It was then that I had the chance to listen to other sports radio broadcasters, either on the long drives from Ohio, or while picking up stations out of Denver and Salt Lake City.
I remember thinking that other play-by-play men didn’t give the score nearly enough. I remember how I often wondered how much time was left in a game. I remember getting frustrated about the fact that sometimes, the people calling the game seemed less interested in their listeners than hearing themselves talk.
These guys, I thought, are no Joe.
During my second year in Wyoming, Joe sent me a hand-written note. I don’t recall exactly what it said, but it offered support and reiterated the fact Joe dreamed of retiring in Evanston.
I showed it to my colleagues in Wyoming, and they were in awe. Yes, even most of them had heard of Joe Tait.
“Why is HE writing to YOU?” my editor asked, shortly before accusing me of penning the letter myself to impress everyone.
But I explained that Joe may be the Voice of the Cavs, but he’s no different than the rest of us. Actually, unlike the rest of us, he doesn’t go out of his way to impress anyone.
Eventually, I took another newspaper job in another state (and another and another and another) and lost the limited communication I had with Joe. It wasn’t until 2005, when I returned to Northeast Ohio and started covering the Cavs again, that I saw Joe.
I didn’t think he would remember me, so when I walked past him outside the Cavs' locker room before a game, I didn’t stop to reintroduce myself. I didn’t tell him how much his support meant to me when I was living (and struggling) in Wyoming. I didn’t even say hello.
I just kept walking. The further I walked, the worse I felt. Not because I had fallen out of touch with the Voice of the Cavs, but because of who Joe was as an individual. It was then I realized he seemed to care about and support me when few others did. Yet he was no longer a part of my life. And it was my fault. I was to blame for the fact we no longer kept in touch.
But just before I collapsed into the dark world of depression and regret, a voice called out behind me.
“Sam,” it said, before a long pause. “When are we going to Wyoming?”
It belonged to Joe, and it was spoken in a way that made it seem like we had never stopped communicating.
On that particular day, that was exactly the Voice I needed to hear. It wasn’t Joe informing me of the score of a game, or asking the Cavs' coach about the starting lineup, or yelling out his signature, “Wham, with the right hand!”
Instead, it was the voice of Joe Tait, the person.
As he prepares to call his final game Wednesday night, I hope he knows that is the Joe Tait I will miss the most. That is the Joe Tait I will always remember, the one I will always be grateful to know.
That is the Voice that will never go away.
