Dick Couch, a four-time state sportswriter of the year at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, died Thursday at his home in Honolulu from complications due to pneumonia, his son, Richard, said. He was 83.
Couch, who lived most of the past 50 years in Kailua, worked at the Star-Bulletin from 1971 to his retirement in 2001.
He was best known for writing about University of Hawaii sports as the program ascended to Division I status. Couch covered the “Fabulous Five” basketball teams of the early ’70s, and the improving football and baseball teams.
Jim Hackleman, then the Star-Bulletin sports editor, recruited him from New York. Couch covered the Yankees, Jets and Rangers for the Associated Press, after having also worked at the New York Daily Mirror, which ceased publication in 1963.
“His writing was funny, insightful and masterful in its storytelling,” said Paul Carvalho, who started out as a protege and was later Couch’s supervisor as Star-Bulletin sports editor. “He set the bar that so many of us who worked alongside him or followed him tried to reach.”
Couch wrote two regular columns: “Dick’s Picks” and “Games People Play.”
“But he always said his favorite was to write about the games,” Richard Couch said. “He’d covered some Super Bowls and numerous championships in pro sports, but he enjoyed college sports much more than pro, because of the heart.”
Even before he moved to the sports copy desk in 1984, Couch was a mentor to many.
“He saved a lot of careers and he formed a lot of careers. Very supportive when things were not going well,” said Carvalho, who succeeded Couch as the UH football beat writer. “He had a way of focusing on the stuff you’re doing right, saying, ‘Let’s work on that.’ For the young group of sportswriters who idolized him, Dick was a supportive, generous, honest and kind mentor. You wanted Dick to edit your story because you knew it was going to be better when he was finished with it. The result wasn’t only a better story, but a better writer. That’s probably his greatest legacy: the many writers he encouraged and the careers he helped create.”
Couch’s versatility also included winning a Best of the West award for headline writing.
After graduation from the University of Illinois and before his journalism career, Couch served in the Army. In 1959 and 1960 he was stationed in Germany, where he met his wife, Aline.
He is also survived by daughters Sylvia and Angela, and grandchildren Jenna, Steven and Portia.
No public services are scheduled.
