A couple of years ago, I wrote this column about my co-worker, Gary Karr, thinking he was close to retirement on the eve of his 40th anniversary at The Eagle. Well, at 66, he’s still going strong here. And this place would not be the same without him.
So here’s that column, a tribute to Gary:
You might have someone like Gary Karr in your office. Then again, you might not.
We have him here in The Eagle’s Sports department, and we’ve had him for 40 years today.
We planned a big newsroom celebration for Gary on Thursday afternoon, but he backed out. He said he needed to take his car in for some work and took a vacation day.
Gary doesn’t much like attention, and we don’t much like giving him any.
But 40 years in one job, in one place, is difficult to ignore. And while Gary might not like attention, he is also someone who has been known to stand on a desk and scream to the high heavens because Wichita State lost a baseball game.
Gary started at The Eagle in 1964 as a high school sports reporter. His career, like that of most journalists, has taken twists and turns.
For the past 12 or 15 or 100 years, he has been the Sports department’s official statistician. If there’s a number in the Sports pages, Gary most likely put it there.
You might enjoy perusing the track and field form chart during the spring. That is Gary’s work.
You might look forward to scanning the leading scorers in the Ark Valley, Chisholm Trail and Central Plains leagues during basketball season. That, too, is Gary’s work.
He also keeps track of the state’s scoring leaders — boys and girls — in basketball. And the leading rushers, passers and receivers in high school football.
It’s an undertaking that requires Gary to spend all but about seven minutes a week at his desk.
And one that has required him to use more paper than the U.S. Treasury.
Gary has dozens and dozens of spiral notebooks filled with statistics. They fill his desk at The Eagle and much of the space in his house.
There are times when Gary and his right-hand man, Charles Jayne, walk out of the Eagle at 6 a.m. after spending all night accumulating statistics.
If you’re going to work on the Sports department’s phone crew, responsible for taking calls and results, you’re going to make about 10,000 calls a night seeking information for Gary. Just plan on it, and don’t fight it.
“I’ve looked at other metropolitan papers, and they don’t even come close to doing what we do,’’ he said.
That’s because other metropolitan papers can’t find maniacs who are willing to work like Gary.
His fascination with numbers started during the 1948 World Series, when he kept a scorebook while listening to radio play-by-play. He was 8.
When he played imaginary games with a tennis ball, bouncing it off the steps of his front porch, he used real major-league players and, of course, devised a way to keep statistics.
We all like Gary, we just don’t understand him.
But just when you’re ready to wring his neck, as I have been on numerous occasions, he’ll offer to help your kid learn about baseball.
Gary spent hours and hours working with my son, Jeff, inside the batting cages at North High. And he’s done the same thing for many others.
There’s nothing in it for Gary except the satisfaction of teaching. And I have never seen him happier.
Gary is also one of the funniest people I know, though his humor is something only those closest to him get to experience.
His specialty is making puns. He can make a pun out of chopped liver. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard him asked how the Garden Plains Owls did in a particular game. His comeback, always, is: “Who?’’
This is how a pun-ful exchange might go with Gary if the subject is, say, poker.
“Gary, played any poker lately?â€
“No, been too busy folding clothes.’’
“Sure, I’ll bet you have.’’
“Yes sir, got a full house of them.’’
Those exchanges go on and on until somebody finally gets bored.
Gary, who is perhaps 5-foot-8 and weighs 135 pounds depending on whether he has had his Twinkies, was a star basketball player at Coffeyville Community College, where he played for Jack Hartman.
To look at him, you wouldn’t believe he was an athlete. But trust me. I remember playing basketball against Gary when he was around 40, and he guarded me as if I were a piece of fine jewelry.
Gary will turn 65 next year, and now devotes his athletic passion toward the El Dorado Broncos baseball team, which he has operated with J.D. Schneider since 1987.
Karr is, he says, part-owner, statistician, van driver and janitor.
He is in his element with the Broncos.
“The best Broncos I’ve ever seen are probably Scott Stahoviak, Kevin Sefcik and Nate Robertson,’’ Gary said. “And what do they have in common? Intensity. They were so intense.’’
So is Gary.
He can’t stop himself from yelling at umpires.
When something goes wrong for the Broncos, Gary throws down his pen or slams his fist on a table. I remember once he got so upset over something that happened that he tipped over backward in his chair in the Lawrence-Dumont Stadium press box.
We thought he had killed himself.
But he got right back up and went back to keeping score.
There is more to Gary than numbers. But numbers have always been a source of his pleasure.
So, on this special day, I’ll say this about Gary: He’s No. 1.
