Saluting a GOAT of a sportswriter: Peter Gobis

 

Longtime readers of The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA, are intimately familiar with the sports stories, features and columns of Peter Gobis, who was the face of the newspaper’s sports department for the last half-century, and with very good reason.
Over the last 50 years, Gobis did his best --- and then some --- to make sure that the exploits of the Attleboro area’s young athletes were remembered by his dedicated coverage of local sports.
But, like football and New England Patriots fans will have to adjust to life without future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady after he retired on Feb. 1 after 22 years, readers of The Sun Chronicle are adjusting to life after Gobis, who also retired on the same day.
I worked with Gobis for nearly 30 of those 50 years, and saw firsthand the hard work and perseverance that he always brought to his job. As a tribute to the GOAT of local sports writers, I’d like to share this column that I wrote to honor Peter.

This column was published Monday, Feb. 7 in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA:

Tom Brady wasn’t the only GOAT to retire Feb. 1. The Sun Chronicle’s GOAT, Peter Gobis, who devoted nearly the last 50 years to covering local sports in the greater Attleboro area, also called it a career on that day.
Gobis’ unquestioned impact on the lives of thousands of athletes in the area was explained beautifully by former Sun Chronicle Editor Mike Kirby in his front-page column (“Thanks, Peter, for half-century of service,” Thursday, Feb. 3). As Paul O’Boy, the retired longtime athletic director at Bishop Feehan High School, told Kirby, the Sun Chronicle’s exhaustive coverage of high school sports was due in large measure to Gobis, who became the newspaper’s first full-time sportswriter when he was hired in 1972.
But Gobis’ enthusiasm for local sports coverage wasn’t confined to the high schools: He, along with former Sun Chronicle Sports Editor Mark Farinella, were responsible for the newspaper’s All-Star teams, and the extensive coverage of the Attleboro Area Golf Association’s annual summer tournament.
Gobis also spent a lot of his “free time” covering the Pawtucket Red Sox, New England Revolution, the International Tennis Hall of Fame Tournament in Newport and the Providence College Friars. In addition, his columns --- both his vignette or notes column on Fridays and his long-running column profiling local athletes --- were greatly anticipated by the newspaper’s readers. Both columns, along with his annual Christmas column in which he bestowed humorous gifts to his friends in the sporting world, showed just how well connected he was.
I’ve been privileged to call Gobis both a colleague and cherished friend since 1989, when I started working at The Sun Chronicle. Over the years, he had the knack of making me laugh when I needed it the most, but two memories stand out above all others:
* The first one came in January 1996. I was at home just sitting down to dinner (in those days the paper went to press at 10:45 a.m. and I’d typically start at 4:30 a.m.), when Gobis called to let me know that I was among the local winners of the Boston Athletic Association’s first-ever lottery for that April’s 100^th Boston Marathon. For the first time, the marathon had increased entries to nearly 40,000 and opened up the race to runners who couldn’t meet the qualifying times through a random drawing, and I won an official number.
Gobis’ call meant that I had to write a column for the next day’s paper, which I did. I also ended up writing weekly on local runners training for the marathon --- and completing the marathon on April 15, 1996, in just under 5 hours.
* The second memory came more than 16 years later, when Gobis put in a good word on my behalf with North Attleboro’s Bill Wanless, the PawSox’s senior vice president of communications, asking whether I could throw out a first pitch that summer to celebrate my 60^th birthday that August. As a result, I was invited to be one of five people to throw out the first pitch at McCoy Stadium before Pawtucket’s Aug. 20, 2012, game against the Rochester Red Wings.
I was excited for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and practiced tossing baseballs with my daughter over the weekend. But in the end, I failed to live up to Gobis’ high expectations as my throw to then-outfielder Alex Hassan bounced to the left and rolled to the backstop.
The fans were oblivious to my faux pas, but as I walked off the field, I heard a loud chorus of boos from one dissatisfied fan: Gobis.
I just cracked up, and 10 years later, it remains a treasured memory.
Happy retirement, Peter. It’s well deserved.
Larry Kessler is a retired Sun Chronicle local news editor and can be reached at larrythek65@gmail.com. He blogs at larrytheklineup.blogspot.com    

Here are links to two columns honoring Peter Gobis, as they appear on The Sun Chronicle’s website. The first one is my column, and the second is the one that former Sun Chronicle Editor Mike Kirby wrote on Feb 3 to honor Peter:

Here's the link to my column on Peter Gobis in The SC on Monday, Feb. 7: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/opinion/columns/larry-kessler-thanks-for-the-memories-peter/article_a79f9730-ae95-5fd5-86e3-3c567520bcab.html

Here's the link to Mike Kirby's column on Peter Gobis in The SC on Thursday, Feb. 3: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/peter-gobis-thanks-for-nearly-50-years-of-sports-and-memories/article_6d345890-1a02-5bba-bcb4-24774fd2148b.html#tncms-source=article-nav-next