Commentary - September 13, 2024 - by Ray Hagar

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If you didn’t know about Guy Clifton's recent passing, or who he was, you probably are not familiar with Reno journalism, rural Nevada, history of the Silver State or the Western sport of rodeo.

Besides his multi-decade journalism career at the Reno Gazette-Journal, Clifton wrote eight books about Nevada subjects. He produced three editions of his widely popular paperback, "You Know You're A Nevadan If ..."

Let me add another: "You know you're a Nevadan if ... you knew Guy Clifton."

I first met Guy in 1978 or '79. I was a young sportswriter at the Reno Gazette-Journal who covered Nevada high schools. The football coach at Gabbs High asked me to speak at their annual banquet. So I drove two-plus hours through Nowhere, Nevada, to find this minuscule mining community, situated about an hour-or-so south of Fallon.
Gabbs was so small that the school could only field an eight-man football team. The Tarantulas (best high school mascot in Nevada) played in the old and venerable Nevada B League — against teams such as Smith Valley, McDermitt, Coleville, Eureka and Austin.

Guy introduced himself to me at this Gabbs dinner and I knew his name because he was the Nevada B League all-state nose guard.

He said he wanted to be a sports journalist. He was unspoiled and eager. So when he arrived at the University of Nevada the following year, our sports editor, Mike Blackwell, hired him as a part-time clerk.

Guy did amazing work. When I was hired to be the sports editor at the El Paso Times in Texas in 1987, the first person I tried to hire was Guy.

He flew out for an interview. He hit it off well with University of Texas at El Paso's famous basketball coach, Don Haskins. They bonded, talking about hunting and fishing. Coach Haskins even said he'd take Guy along to his secret hunting cabin the next time his good friend, Bobby Knight, visited El Paso.

Guy declined the job offer. I was disappointed and could not understand why. I realized Guy's roots in Nevada were too deep for a move to West Texas. Besides, his mom didn't want him to go.

I returned to Nevada as sports editor for the RGJ in 1993 and the first person I tried to hire was — again — Guy. It was midnight and he was on a fishing trip when I finally tracked him down.

This time he said “yes.” We became a two-man team. During the years, we covered or oversaw coverage of anything from high school football and prize fights to the final budget vote of the Nevada Legislature.

I could not have done well in my career without Guy Clifton. He had been ill most of this year. And although I know his soul is now in a wonderful place, I am still filled with grief about his passing. He was only 62.

Guy was the ultimate right-hand man. We never made a decision in that sports department about a headline or story without first asking, “What does Guy think?”

When I became the political/legislative reporter for the RGJ, I needed help, so, naturally, I called Guy. He said he didn't know enough about politics to help but I talked him into it — told him it was a lot like covering sports with winners and losers and besides, all the politicians used sports jargon to explain things. So we covered a few Nevada Legislatures together.

We also wrote a book together, about the 1910 "Fight of the Century" in Reno between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, billed as "The Great White Hope."

Guy had a great idea of telling the story by researching and writing how Reno's two newspapers at the time, the morning Nevada State Journal and the Reno Evening Gazette, covered the fight and the training camps leading up to it.

The editors and cartoonists back in the day seemed to have racist views of Johnson. But the sportswriters loved covering him, since he was so much more interesting than the surly Jeffries.

This time, I was Guy's right-hand man. I wrote about half of the book. Guy wrote the other half but also laid out the pages, secured all the old photos and dealt with the publisher.

Guy was so proud of the books he wrote. He told me a few times, "When you write a book, and hold it in your hand, that's an accomplishment no one can ever take from you."

Despite all the work Guy did on the "Fight of the Century" book, he insisted that my name appear first on the book's cover. It was an example of Guy's consideration for others.

Guy's kindness and patience were two reasons why he was such a good mentor. Reno sportswriter Chris Murray eloquently pointed out recently for the Nevada Sports Network that Guy "might have been the most influential journalist in Reno's history."

Not because of his books, not because of his many stories and opinion columns in the RGJ — but because Guy was a mentor who influenced so many of today's journalists and other media professionals in Northern Nevada.

"Measuring the number of young journalists Guy impacted in the dozens would underestimate his impact," Murray wrote. "Everybody who met Guy loved Guy. And he loved them right back."

Lessons extended beyond the newsroom.

Heather Burns, now the top editor for NFL coverage for ESPN News, recalled that Guy taught her how to golf and shoot a gun when she was the high school sportswriter at the RGJ 30 years ago.

"He introduced me to George Strait and the smoothest song ever — The Chair," Burns wrote on Facebook.

Back when we toiled in the RGJ sports department, Guy would hire these young college kids who turned out to be great clerks and stringers. Guy was a former editor of the University of Nevada student newspaper, The Nevada Sagebrush, and had many connections to future journalists, eager to get a foot in the door of one of the state's major newspapers.

"Guy will be missed but his legacy will live on forever," former RGJ sports clerk Roni Branson posted on Facebook.

Guy's final journalistic endeavor before his passing was his online "newspaper" called Brushin' Up. Each edition was comprised of stories about former Sagebrush editors and reporters. His research sometimes went back more than a century. It was so masterfully done that I once called it "genius."

Guy was a versatile journalist who could write about sports, politics, education, you name it. His love, however, was the rodeo. He was considered one of the best rodeo newspaper reporters in America. Only a guy from Fort Worth who worked for the Dallas Morning News was considered his equal. When the Reno Rodeo came to town, Guy was king. It was his World Series and Super Bowl rolled into one. He knew everybody. Every cowboy and cowgirl knew him.

Guy wrote a book about it: The Reno Rodeo, the First 80 Years. He was inducted into the Reno Rodeo Hall of Fame a few years back.

I used to marvel how these rodeo cowboys — traveling long distances from one rodeo to another — would stop at a payphone outside of Prescott, Arizona, Medicine Hat, Utah, or Greeley, Colorado, to call Guy to do an interview. And rodeo cowboys, believe me, were usually among the worst at calling a sportswriter back.

He also covered the National Finals Rodeo for many years in Las Vegas for The Associated Press.

In 2022, Guy was honored as a Distinguished Nevadan by the University of Nevada. It was an honor attained by so few but Guy was so deserving. He was an encyclopedia of Nevada history, author, journalist, son of hardscrabble rural Nevada and respected by many governors.

This Saturday, Guy will receive his final honor, as he will be inducted posthumously into the Nevada State Press Association Hall of Fame.

For me, it was an honor to know him all of these years. Happy trails, my friend.

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