SCOTT JACOBS

I hardly knew Steve Ellis.

But he was one heck of a sports writer.

I had the privilege of meeting him about a month ago at one of FSU’s home games in the press box.  I approached him, told him how much I enjoyed reading his articles, and began telling him my passion for sports.  He seemed like a quiet guy. I characterized my first meeting with him as a bit strange, because after I met him, I didn’t quite know what to make of him.

Still, I figured to be the best, to really learn how to do the job, Steve would be a fantastic guy to shadow.

I told him that I would love the opportunity to shadow him, and that any chance I could get to soak up even a little bit of what he knew would be a real thrill for me.

He told me that he could definitely try to accommodate that.  He suggested a game towards the end of the season.  NC State or Mayland he told me, depending which game starts when.

We exchanged some emails those next few weeks.  It became clear that NC State would be the game I would shadow.  But the week of the game he canceled, stating that there wouldn’t be much for me to learn.  Afterall he was just going to end up writing the story from home.

I was okay with that.  He emailed me back, and told me that he had a good story idea for the Maryland game (Mickey Andrews’ final game at home as FSU defensive coordinator).  His plan was to split time between sitting with Diane, Andrews’ wife, and T.K. Wetherall, the school president.  Great I thought.  What an awesome opportunity to watch a great writer do his thing.

He had given me his phone number, and in the weeks leading to the game I emailed and called him to confirm the details for the Maryland game.  He never got back to me.

Steve Ellis suffered a massive heart attack shortly thereafter, but it sounded like he would make a full recovery.  My mind at ease, but still sort of blown away, I wondered what could have been.  What became was something i never saw coming.  Ellis died on Thursday.  He was only 54.

Today in the press box I found this out.  I was stunned.

I told the story to long time voice of the Seminoles Gene Deckerhoff.  He was stunned.  So was I.  It all happened so fast I didn’t know what to think.

Here I was, a little over a week earlier, scheduled to shadow one of the best writers in the area.  A mere few weeks later he was dead.

I didn’t know the man well.  Hardly at all.  But this story, this set of circumstances, the timing of everything is just eerie and so very sad on so many levels. No matter what the time for the Maryland game, that’s the game you’ll shadow me he had told me through an email a few weeks earlier.  But obviously that never came.

The whole thing is kind of surreal.  Ellis was a big time figure in FSU sports.  He had been covering them for over 30 years.  He had experienced virtually Bobby Bowden’s entire run at the school.  He had seen it all.  Bowden, now 80 was winding down his career.  Ellis seemed to have many good years in front of him.

Amazing how so many things can change in the blink of an eye.

I guess the moral to the story is never take a second for granted.  Ellis didn’t.  He was writing a story for the paper when he began feeling chest pains.  He still got the article in on time.

I wish I could have spent more time around him, saw the man that hovered around FSU sports writing, like Bowden does over the football program.  But this strange, eerie clash of timing has me feeling a little numb.  It can be gone in an instant.  All of it, gone in a flash.

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