E-GIANTS
Dave Klein was the Giants' beat writer for The Star-Ledger from 1961 to 1995.
He is the author of 26 books and he was one of only three sportswriters to have covered all the Super Bowls until the past few. Dave has allowed TEAM GIANTS to reprint some of his articles.

NOTES AND THOUGHTS ABOUT DAVE KLEIN FROM THE E-GIANTS FRIENDS AND FAMILY:
HE WAS MUCH MORE THAN A SPORTS WRITER

By Scott Landstrom
This is a column that I hoped I never would have to write, but knew that fate might dictate that I must. It has been said that there are three events that every person is dictated to go through in their journey through this world: being born, paying taxes, and meeting our end in death.

As you all know by now, our Founder, Editor, Publisher, and Creative Genius leader who conceived and developed E-GIANTS, Mr. David Klein, passed away suddenly in May. I had just talked on the phone with Dave two days earlier, and while my focus was on his health and how he was recovering from a hospital stay that he had just been discharged from, as usual, his focus was on the welfare of others, asking me if my fiance and I had picked a date and venue for our nuptials.

I tried to tell him not to worry about those details, and tried to refocus our conversation back to his health, but he was a man of strong will, and would not be swayed. A "pillar of oak" when he set his mind to a position.

When a few days later, I got a voicemail from Aaron Klein asking me to call as soon as practical, all of my alarms went off that this could be really bad news beckoning at the cavern. And as I feared, it was indeed the worst possible news... Dave had passed away.

When I think of my 20+year relationship with Dave, and getting to know him on both a personal and professional level, I am struck by what a complex human being he was. He embodied several talents and modalities that defied him being defined as one type of person, versus the truly diversified person he truly was.

He was a gifted college athlete, making the freshman team at powerhouse Oklahoma as an offensive lineman. Go look up the statistics on how many kids play varsity football in high school, and how many make the grade to play at a national icon like Oklahoma. The numbers say it is something like 1 in 1000. While his vocation was reporting on sports, and he would never indulge in the self-promotion of discussing his own accomplishments, he was clearly an exceptional athlete on his own.

He was a skilled sports writer, working for his father initially, and distinguishing himself with his sharp eye for talent, and his intellectual acumen for breaking down a football game. As Aaron has previously chronicled, he was one of four sportswriters in the world to attend and report on every one of the first several dozen Super Bowl, before illness or mortality started paring their numbers to the current zero.

As an arm's-length employee, Dave revealed to me a "90 percent supportive, 10 percent critical" mix of encouragement and disparagement. I would bet if a neutral observer weighed in on our areas of conflict, they would end up -- after reviewing the positions of each of us -- at almost a perfect 50/50 split as to who was in the more convincing, validated position. Two alpha-males sign up to work together, and these kinds of dust ups will happen. So be it.

But Dave was much more than a gifted sports writer, editor and entrepreneur, which he would reveal to all readers in some of his special columns that he did on momentous occasions.

On Thanksgiving, he would annually transmit his retelling of "The Carving" with his family, particularly his granddaughter, Talia. On Mother's Day, he would reprint his (now famous) metaphor of how his mother guided he and his siblings through the various stages of life, before passing to the next life, and Dave's poetic metaphor of her climbing a hill to the Golden Portal to the next life, with her gaining height, and straightness of spine, and with her apparent regression into her youth as she walked up the mountain, shedding 30 years of aging in a dozen steps up the hill. The metaphor was amazing and moving, as a mother learned in various stages how to appreciate the development of her three children, as they passed through different stages of life.

Alas, the column I hoped to never write, but knew that it was highly likely that I would, has come to pass. Dave Klein was a magical combination of athlete, student, sports reporter, national icon, entrepreneur, romantic soul – and so very much more.

All I know is I will miss him dearly, in every sense of our complex interfaces, from now to eternity.