Edward J. “Jim” Fitzgerald was one of those lucky people who found a way to make a living doing what he loved.
An avid bowler, Mr. Fitzgerald spent much of his newspaper career covering bowling for the baiduhai’s sports section. He retired in 1992.
Mr. Fitzgerald, 73, died of lung cancer Sunday in his Vernon Hills home.
“One of his main loves was to go bowling, and he was able to incorporate that into his writing,” said Cooper Rollow, a former Tribune sports editor who worked with Mr. Fitzgerald for many years. “The same zest that he had for bowling, he put into everything around the sports department–his writing and his editing. He had a lot of personality, a lot of pizazz.”
Born in Chicago, Mr. Fitzgerald was a resident of the Near North Side for most of his life. He received a journalism degree from the University of Missouri in 1949 and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
He joined the Tribune in 1961 as a writer and copy editor on the sports desk.
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Colleagues described him as a high-spirited man with a wry sense of humor. They also said he was very versatile, covering boxing, yachting, skiing and ice skating over the years.
“He liked to sit on a certain corner of the copy desk so he could survey the newsroom and he could tell if anything was going on at the national desk or the world desk. He had this unbridled curiosity,” said John Husar, who worked with Mr. Fitzgerald on the sports desk.
Mr. Fitzgerald bowled in the American Bowling Congress annual tournament for 45 years and was a past president of the Bowling Writers Association of America. He wrote several books on bowling and won about a dozen writing awards for stories about bowling.
In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald met his wife of 25 years, Darlene, at a bowling tournament.
“My husband just happened to spot me bowling, and then he was a speaker at our bowling league banquet,” Darlene Fitzgerald said. “It was a whirlwind romance.”
In addition to his wife, Mr. Fitzgerald is survived by a son, Jim; a daughter, Linda Ricco; and four grandchildren. Visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday in Burnett-Dane Funeral Home, 120 W. Park Ave., Libertyville. Services will be held there at 10 a.m. Thursday.