R.I.P. William Gildea (1939-2020)

William Gildea covered many sporting events during his 50-plus years with the Washington Post – his assignments took him around the world – but Gildea, who died Sunday morning, June 14, at age 81 from the effects of Parkinson’s disease, had a special connection to boxing. He covered, by his estimate, 30-40 fights in Las Vegas and authored a well-received biography of former lightweight champion Joe Gans.

Gildea earned a B.A. from Georgetown and an M.S. from the Columbia School of Journalism. He began his newspaper career as a copyreader for the Baltimore Sun. Two years later he settled in at the Washington Post.

Gildea authored or co-authored six books. His first book was about the Washington Redskins and their controversial coach George Allen. His co-author, Kenneth Turan, went on to become one of America’s most well-known film critics.

Gildea also authored a personal memoir of growing up a fan of the old Baltimore Colts and a book about high school basketball in Indiana “where it seems that every house has a hoop in the driveway, on the barn, or both.”

Having grown up in Baltimore. Gildea was a natural to write the story of Joe Gans, the Baltimore native who reigned as the world lightweight champion from 1902 to 1908 and is rated in many quarters as the greatest lightweight of all time. Gildea’s book, titled “The Longest Fight” and sub-titled “In the Ring with Joe Gans, Boxing’s First African-American Champion” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012) is centered around Gans’ brutal 1906 fight with Battling Nelson in Goldfield, Nevada.

Gildea took a buyout from the Washington Post in December of 2003 but continued with the paper as a sporadic contributor. In 2005, Gildea’s peers in the Boxing Writers of Association of America accorded him the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism, the lone BWAA award where voting is restricted to previous winners.

In the tributes to Gildea now popping up on the web, he is described as modest to a fault. “Bill was an old-school sportswriter,” said his great friend and former colleague Leonard Shapiro. “ESPN gigs or sports radio appearances never much appealed to him.”

William Gildea is survived by his wife Mary Fran, four children, and eight grandchildren. We here at The Sweet Science send our condolences.

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