Buddy Martin Blog. Tom McEwen: Touch of P.T. Barnum, dash of Tony Robbins, slice of Jeff Foxworthy.
Updated: Jan 25, 2022
Over your bowl of mouth-watering Hardee County apples, pears and cantaloupe, a piece of lightly toasted Cuban bread from the La Segunda Bakery in Ybor City, guava pastry from the Samaria Café, served with a chilled spoon from Ulele, a small slice of a filet mignon from Bern’s Steakhouse, a glass of freshly squeezed Polk County grapefruit juice and Cuban Coffee from The Blind Tiger Café. (In honor of Tom McEwen’s Breakfast Bonus Menu)
The last time I saw Tom McEwen, he was in a canister. His ashes were about to be committed to a private cemetery on the front lawn of Dr. Barbara Carlton in Wauchula, where her late husband Albert, their friend Carl Simmons and the best bird dog she ever hunted behind, a Brittany named Peaches, already lay. That was over a decade ago. His spirit is about to come alive again Sunday at Raymond James Stadium.
Without Tom McEwen, there might not even be a Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL franchise, let alone Super Bowl LV.
“If only his ashes could rise up now and tell us some stories,” said his hunting partner, sometimes golfing buddy and cousin by marriage, Dr. Carlton, who at 88 still practices medicine, owns and manages the 400 acre-estate called Glen Okra and hunts wild turkey there.
A long time ago, when sports columnists were major influencers and newspapers still mattered, men constructed stories on manual typewriters in the press box. Their voices resonated not just on sports, but on many major issues throughout their community and their footprints were indelible. Tom McEwen was the Big Foot of Tampa Bay, and nobody will ever come close to his community clout.
“He did more for Tampa than Dick Greco, or any of those other Tampa mayors combined,” said Dr. Carlton.
Example: In what started out as somewhat of a two-man campaign, McEwen and activist Bill Marcum began promoting the idea of holding NFL exhibitions in the new Tampa Stadium, later to be known as “The Sombrero.” That begat the Bucs, which begat the Super Bowl.
I don’t write much about other sports writers, especially those against whom I once competed. But as one who called McEwen my friend for nearly 50 years and also benefitted from his advocacy journalism, it would be hypocritical not to pay homage this week of The Tom McEwen Bowl. Without him, there may not have even been a fictitious place called Tampa Bay. Largely because of his vision and determination, I along with other members of the press had the privilege of practicing my craft in a big-league venue. We were friends and became friendly rivals of sort.
As a couple of small town boys from Ocala and Wauchula, we traipsed down the Dusty Trail of Sports Writing together, covering the Florida Gators and SEC football for different newspapers – he finally from the Tampa Tribune, me finally from the St. Petersburg Times. He started at the Fort Myers News-Press, fresh out of the military, then on to run a three-man staff of the Tampa Daily Times, where my dad was once city editor. I watched Tom closely as I cut my teeth at my hometown Ocala Star-Banner, and studied his moves as he built his bully pulpit at the Tampa Tribune with media market saturation like no other sportswriter, ever.
The Tampa-born, Wauchula-raised McEwen is said to have delivered newspaper on horseback and fit the stereotype of the barefoot country boy. He played golf in high school, where his team once almost had to forfeit a match because they lost their only three golf balls. Forever the resourceful one, McEwen managed to borrow a couple of balls from a local lawyer, Grady Burton, to finish the match.
Later he encouraged me to take up golf more seriously, “because you can make so many good contacts and even interview people while you’re playing with them.”
That was after he came to Ocala for a Chamber of Commerce golf outing and left with all the loot as a 12-handicapper. I did, and eventually went into the business as media director of the Colorado PGA Tour event, the International. He influenced many of us about golf.
Barbara Carlton once showed up for his invite to play a scramble in Tampa with Tom. “Our playing partners were George Steinbrenner and Johnny Bench.”
McEwen boasted a Rolodex of a power-broker with a litany of personal relationships in politics, show biz, sports and life. He knew how to conduct a conversation that wasn’t threatening or imposing, could tell a good story, was a bit a prankster who loved to make people laugh and about as good a toastmaster and eulogist as I’ve ever seen. In fact, when McEwen passed in June of 2011 people were asking why he couldn’t be available for his own eulogy, because nobody could have done it better.
“He was just very passionate,” said Dr. Carlton, a good friend and hunting companion. “And he was very observant. He had a way about him that he could extract things out of the people he interviewed. You might say he was almost ‘cunning.’”
Interesting adjective of choice. I tried to conjure up a comparable personality and kept thinking: A little touch of P.T. Barnum, a dash of Tony Robbins and a slice of Jeff Foxworthy.
Steve Spurrier credits McEwen with getting him his first break to become a head coach. When the Tampa Bay Bandits of the USFL formed under owner John Bassett, McEwen suggested he contact the young offensive coordinator from Duke. And thus the HBC title was born.
Spurrier remembers after Florida won its first national championship in 1996, McEwen showed up at the hotel party as the only media guy allowed in.
“He was thrilled and just said, ‘thank you for winning a national championship for my Gators before I died.’ And he was around to see the Bucs win the Super Bowl.”
Retired Associate Athletic Director Norm Carlson, Spurrier’s close friend who is largely credited with boosting his chances for winning the 1966 Heisman Trophy, remembers McEwen fondly. “He was honest, he loved the Gators, but he didn’t let it creep into his writing,” said Carlson. “He had a way about him. I don’t know anybody who didn’t like Tom McEwen.”
Well there was at least one, for a while. The first coach of the Bucs, John McKay, and McEwen were good friends and almost gray-haired doppelgangers, but they had a falling out over some issue, which caused him to call Tom “asshole” one day. Even then, McEwen played it off by writing a semi-humorous column. “I would have preferred he call me Mister,” wrote McEwen. He later had a nameplate made for his desk (probably by George or Leonard Levy, according to Joe Henderson) that read: “Mister A-hole.”
He never missed an opportunity for a good laugh, even if it was on him.
”He was a giant — didn’t always follow the rules of journalism as far as being an activist and didn’t really care what anybody thought,” recalled Henderson, whom McEwen tapped off his staff to follow him as Tribune columnist. “He was all in for the good of Tampa.”
At the end when Tom slowed down, his newspaper somewhat abandoned him, apparently unhappy about his chummy relationship with sources and powerful people. The Tribune showed him the door, but Tom was like a bad penny and kept showing up like a good penny — even when he had to be rolled into the press box in a wheelchair.
Tom McEwen WAS Tampa.
“Tom has been more important to Tampa than cigars,” said sports columnist Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times.
Tom Edrington, former Tribune sportswriter once wrote: “For as long as anyone can remember, he was the Sports Editor of The Tampa Tribune. He was the Godfather of any and everything sports related in Tampa.”
“I don’t like any sports writers,” Ted Williams once groused. “But I like Tom McEwen.”
In this topsy-turvy day of the Pandemic, when sports has its own identity crisis, some good has come of it. As one comic put it, the Pandemic has “even forced the Super Bowl to stay home.”
Super Bowl LV was moved to Raymond James from Los Angeles, which affords this rare moment for all of Tampa Bay to sparkle in the sunlight as the Sports Mecca of the World. The Lightning brought the Stanley Cup, the Rays the American League pennant and now, could it be possible for the Bucs to win a Super Bowl played in its own stadium – one that Tom McEwen helped build? They have a legitimate shot, thanks largely to a pair of Toms: McEwen and Brady.
Tampa’s success has Boston pissed off. And it has caused Patriots fans and Bill Belichick worshippers to face this bitter truth, as written by Boston Globe Columnist Dan Shaughnessy:
“They don’t have Duck Boats in Tampa. Or Swan Boats. Or Harvard. Or Yo-Yo Ma. Or Fenway Park.
“But you know what they do have?
“Better teams than we have.”
Tom McEwen must be rolling over in his canister laughing. Except not in Wauchula. About a year ago, his widow Linda asked Barbara Carlton if she could have his ashes back. He’s in Tampa for the big game. Ironically his old newspaper, The Trib, is out of business. Somehow I’ve just got a feeling Tom McEwen planned all this, because he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
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