Paul Daugherty
From the time he was sports editor of his high school newspaper in Bethesda, Maryland, Paul Daugherty knew he what he wanted to do with his life. He was a sports fan who loved to write, so he combined the two. Readers around the world are glad he did.
His passion for accuracy was honed as a journalism major at Washington and Lee University by Professor Ham Smith. Professor Smith drove home that point with an axe in a tree trunk mounted on his office door indicating how Incorrect copy would be treated.
As a second semester senior in 1979, Daugherty considered going to bartender school. However, that path changed with a chance meeting at a party. He struck up a conversation with a man who turned out to be the editor of the Carroll County Times in Westminster, Maryland. Daugherty was offered a job working the less-than-exciting local and county government beat. He accepted it but jumped at the opportunity when the sports editor position opened.
After a general sports reporting stop at the Virginian-Pilot in Hampton Roads, Virginia, Daugherty headed southwest to The Dallas Times Herald. For two years he was given free rein to write sports features about topics anywhere in the country. Louisville vs. Duke in the 1986 Final Four? No problem! The first Great Alaska Shootout? He was there.
New York’s Newsday pulled Daugherty back east in 1985 with the same assignment: covering sports stories from all over the country.
“I loved the job, but not the area,” he said.
So, when the Cincinnati Post needed a sports columnist in 1987, Daugherty moved to the Midwest and has called the Queen City home ever since.
“Writing a column instead of features wasn’t a tough move,” Daugherty said. “I’m fairly opinionated.”
He took that mantra to The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1994 and stayed with the paper until his retirement in 2022. By his count, he’s written well over 10,000 columns.
One of his favorite topics is focusing on ordinary people doing extraordinary things. For example, George “Sugar” Costner was an up-and-coming Cincinnati boxer until punches left both retinas detached, and he was blind by age 34. Despite that challenge, Costner got a degree at Cleveland State University and worked for the Ohio Civil Rights Commission for 35 years.
Daugherty witnessed Tiger Woods’ entire career starting with a 12-stroke win in the 1997 Masters and ending with the U.S. Open in 2008. He covered all of Barry Larkin’s years with the Cincinnati Reds, Eric Davis’ home run in the 1990 World Series and more. He wrote books with Reds Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench and Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson.
But he also told personal stories: he considered Cincinnati a family kind of town. He wrote about son, Kelly, the “Kid Down The Hall” and their annual father/son trips to North Carolina. He wrote as the parent of a disabled child, Jillian, and her journey in “An Uncomplicated Life.
An oft-honored journalist, Daugherty was named National Sports Columnist of the Year in 2013 by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE). He was Ohio’s top sportswriter/columnist nine times.
He continues his sports writing in “retirement” online with “The Morning Line.”