
Ray Richardson did it for nearly a quarter century
Before he relocated a couple of weeks ago to Los Angeles, Ray Richardson left his indelible mark on the Twin Cities. But even before he relocated here from Phoenix almost three decades ago, he had already made history.
Richardson is number 28 on the late Boston sportswriter Larry Whitesideâs âThe Black Listâ on which he listed every Black sportswriter heâd met in press boxes, beginning in 1971. Whiteside died in 2007 and was posthumously inducted into both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame.
âThere are a lot more [Black sportswriters] today than when you and I first started,â Richardson told the MSR.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press hired Richardson from the Arizona Republic in 1990. âThe Pioneer Press was looking for a jack-of-all-trades. One reason why I took the jobâI like that.â
During his 24-year tenure there, Richardson was that paperâs only Black sportswriter. He covered every local pro team, many Gopher teams, and other sporting teams in town. âAt times I felt stressed out, but I loved doing it. It was fun,â he recalled.
We asked Richardson to list in no particular order his top five beats.
- Gopher WBB: âThat was one of my primary beats for three years.â
- Kevin Garnett and the Timberwolves: âHe coming out of high school was big.â
- Dennis Green, the Vikingsâ first Black HC: âI did his first two years. To be around a Black HC, an NFL HC, was pretty impressive.â
- The Wolvesâ first playoff appearance in 1997: âThat was a big deal.â
- The 1992 Final Four at the Metrodome: âMichigan, the Fab Five; Duke, Indiana and Cincinnati were here.â
His top five personalities he enjoyed covering: âKG, Dennis Green, [former Gopher WBB coach] Brenda Oldfield [now Frese], Lindsay Whalen and Ron Gardenhire,â reported Richardson.
And his top five, plus one, unforgettable assignments:
- âWhen the Gopher WBB team beat Duke in the [2004] regional finals to qualify for the Final Four was big. They were not favored to beat Duke and pretty much handled them.â
- âThe Dennis Green story when he was fired.â
- âCovering the Gopher WBB team when they were having all these issues [of several Black players who transferred]. I remember writing a lot of front-page stories about that.â
- Covering the National League playoffs in San Francisco for a week. âTo be out there covering some big news items, that was special for me.â
- The Gopher MBB team coached by Clem Haskins that reached the 1990 regional finals âbecause I was in New Orleans for a whole week.â
- The Minnesota Twins being selected for contraction in 2002. âWe spent three days [in Chicago] chasing that story. And it never happened.â
The rarity of being a full-time Black sportswriter at one of the Twin Cities PWM (primarily White media) for 24 yearsâRichardson retired from the Pioneer Press in 2014âisnât lost on him. For the record, there are presently zero Black sportswriters at the Pioneer Press, and only two at the Star Tribune.
âMy main focus was to be good enough in my work so that there would be others to come,â Richardson said. âI never hung my hat on the fact that I was one of the few Black writers out there covering the major [local] teams.
âMy main focus wasâŠto do the best work I could do so people couldnât say I was hired because I was Black. I wanted to be just as good as the other guys across the room and across the river.â
Charles Hallman is a contributing reporter and award-winning sports columnist at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.