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Albuquerque Journal reporter Mike Hall never forgot.
Mike
Hall was certainly all of that and a scoop of ice cream, too. Hired
as the Albuquerque Tribune sports editor, Mike later served as the city
editor and as a columnist during the five years that he spent working
for the city's evening newspaper.
You will sometimes find those bridges in the most unlikely of places. Back in the year that I first received my press credentials from the university for this website, I was totally a fish out of water (and still am). If it hadn't of been for Tribune reporters Jeff Carlton and Iliana Limón showing me around and making me feel comfortable during the first event that I covered, I would have been completely lost. While the vast majority of the credit for that kindness is due to the sincerely warm and generous nature of them both, it appears that it was also due in part, to some big old Okie footprints that first blazed the trail....
You joined the Tribune after he had already moved over to the Journal. Now you and I both know that quite a spirited (if muted) rivalry exists there. Did you ever get a sour sense of that rivalry when working alongside Mike? "The Tribune and the Journal naturally have a pretty strong rivalry," Iliana concurs, "but it was always nice working alongside Mike Hall. We had a great professional relationship. A lot of veteran reporters with the upper hand would not have shared some basic tips, helping me put a lot of things in perspective my first year. Mike was really different. He was kind enough to help me out by sharing which coaches gave the best interviews, when to worry about someone's responses and when to just chalk it up to mood swings" You said that he helped you gain some perspective during your first year. What exactly did you mean by that? "Well, Mike shared such great life lessons," Iliana says. "As reporters, it's very easy to get lost in your work. There's always another story, another deadline and another reason to spend more time at work. Mike was careful to draw a line and devote a lot of time to his family. He would take ridiculously late-night flights after away games, just so that he could eat breakfast with his family in the morning. I once returned from visiting my family in El Paso during the holidays after letting a co-worker cover one women's basketball game. It was the only game I missed all season, and I felt a little guilty about passing my work on to someone else." "Mike quickly corrected me on that though," Iliana laughs, "assuring me that I had made the right choice spending extra time with my friends and family during the holidays. He said that he had always meant to spend more time with his parents, but before he knew it, they both had died. He promised that he wouldn't make the same mistake with the rest of his family and urged me not to make the same mistake with mine." "Mike just always sort of looked out for me, you know? Although he always insisted that I could do just fine on my own."
"I literally owe my career to Mike Hall," said Journal staff writer Will Webber. "The man hired me on the spot as a part-time agate clerk for the Summer Olympics, even though I hadn't studued journalism in college. Over the years he always took time to nudge me in the right direction, be it in journalism or in family matters. While I'll always remember him for his engaging personality and natural love of sports, the thing that I'll miss the most is our annual rite of spring -- debating who's better, my Angels or his A's."
"For years a lot of us have made at least some feeble attempt at a Mike Hall impersonation," said Journal staff writer, James Yodice. "It was sort of a running gag. But the thing was, it was always done in fun and with great respect -- and Mike appreciated that. That's what I'll remember, just how fun-loving and genial he always was. He was a true gentleman and he loved this profession, and I like to think that those qualities rubbed off on the rest of us."
"Mike was a friend of mine," recalled writer William de Worde in his blog. "He hired me to work on the Journal sports desk over 10 years ago. Well, he didn't so much "hire" me as let me work there part-time (I was already working for the City Desk as a runner) during the week when they needed someone to answer phones." In a refrain often heard when discussing Mike Hall, de Worde continues, "Mike was just a great guy. I remember one time, when I was still playing rugby, I walked into the office one afternoon and Mike called me over to the desk." 'I'm kinda concerned about you playing rugby,' he tells me with a sly grin." "He then showed me an article about a New Zealand rugby player who was accused of sticking his hands up… well, you get the idea. 'Is that what rugby is like?' he asked with that same, silly grin. Whenever Mike was around, there was always something smart-assy that would come out of his mouth. Never in a malicious way, but in a light-hearted tone that would bring out the best in you for a response."
"Mike cut through the stress of the job and kept the newsroom loose and in good spirits," says Journal sports editor, Sam Aselstine, "invoking the office PGA Tour Marshall "Quiet" sign from Ken Sickenger on an almost daily basis. Mike didn't take himself too seriously, but valued the important things in life and was a true pro on the job. He made a tough job look easy."
"Mike
was one of those special people who was able to keep his spirits at
a Mike's quick and carefree mind always kept a one-liner on the tip of his tongue. He was happy whether it was 5 in the morning or five after midnight. I had the good fortune to have Mike as a roomate one summer when his wife and family returned home to take care of some family concerns. He needed a place to stay and since The Linz was vacationing in Europe, I had an open room at my house. When you are around someone for that much time, you expect to see the darker side of a person or a personality. You expect to discover mood swings, ups and downs, but with Mike, those things never surfaced. I'm sure Mike had his down moments, his faults, but he also seemed to be one of those people who realized that there was little to be gained by bringing down the people around you. I don't think Mike was as self-absorbed as most people. He seemed to put other people's feelings ahead of his own. He seemed to enjoy making a situation better, not worse. The Hall family has lost a great member and a lot of people in Albuquerque have lost a good friend."
"He was a great man," said Las Cruces Sun-News reporter, Felix Chavez, "who was very helpful when I first started doing high school games for the Journal and his knowledge of boxing was always helpful. He was always a gentleman, always willing to talk and share knowledge."
"Man, I sure hated those wild-card games he'd play at the poker table," said Journal staff writer, Mark Smith. "Never could figure them out. Figuring out Mike however, was a different story. I never heard him shout. Never really saw him angry, in fact. Once upon a time, he was my boss. Once he was my mentor. He'll always be my friend. And I'll miss him dearly."
"Mike really cared about the kids on the team," says photographer and UNM counselor Gary Stepic. "Some people might accuse him of sugar-coating things, but that was just how Mike saw life. And more importantly, that was how he lived his life, you know? Mike was just a generally positive guy - that was just his style. He wasn't doing it just to butter-up to anyone, because he wouldn't ever do that. He believed in what he was doing one hundred percent, and to hell with everything else."
"Mike had such a genial nature," says Journal Assistant Sports Editor, Ed Johnson. "He had broad interests and could be passionate about events of the world. But he would always return to his fun-loving, bad-joke cracking self. His amiable presence and genuine goodness will always remain with those of us who were privileged to hang out with him." I was fortunate enough to contact Mr. Ed Johnson while I was fishing around for trout to populate this story. Mr. Johnson had asolutely no idea in hell who we were. Guess he was flying around by the seat of his pants too. "I sat next to him for several years," said Johnson. "I loved Mike. He was just a regular kind of guy. One minute we would be talking about politics and the next minute would be about some dumb joke that he had just said. He just had this great heart...you know? He had this great passion about politics. He really cared about people -- he was always so personable and just wanted to see people smile." "That was what it was always about with him." "It was about seeing other people. Whether it was personal or political in nature, he just had this huge heart" I begged him for three years to post on my site. I think he was more shy than most people seem to realize. "He was just being a pro," continues Johnson. "The more opinions that you put out there -- they can be easily be misconstrued . We have to be very careful about that sort of thing. If we just lay them out there for somebody else, they can do what they want with them -- maybe even twist them into something that wasn't originally intended. I mean, once I was having a casual conversation with this guy at football practice, and the next thing I know, he's on the radio telling people what I was telling him about. There is certainly some of that to be careful of, whenever you are talking to somebody. What I don't want to get lost in all of this -- what I really think is the most important thing about Mike Hall, is his heart. A heart as big as the world, that was Mike."
 Like many of the human canvasses that he so vividly painted in his stories, Mike Hall was a complex man of many contrasts. At times he was charmingly shy, while at others, outgoing and mischievous. It should come as no surprise then, that the mild-mannered gentleman harbored a lifelong appreciation for the often cruel and vicious world of prize-fighting. And in the hotbed of boxing that is Albuquerque, there was no reporter more trusted and respected by those same fighters than Mike Hall. Most
people knew that Mike
had played several sports as a young man, but those same people were
usually surprised to find out that Mike had also dabbled in boxing for
a time as an amateur. "He was never really any good at it,"
Mike's daughter Kathryn admitted to the Albuquerque Journal, "but
he liked it."
Crediting
Mike as being the "one who made me famous," Kid Dynamite told
the Journal earlier this year, "You didn't always have to have
your guard up {with Mike}. As an athlete, you always have to watch out
with you guys {the press}. With him, you didn't. It was always open
arms. He would let you speak your mind and make you sound good." Back
in Mike's day, the fight game had often been referred to as the "sweet
science." On a fateful visit to his doctor earlier in 2005, there
had been nothing 'sweet' about the science coming from the clinical
laboratory results that ensued. The old would-be pugilist was about
to face the biggest foe of his entire life that year, having just been
diagnosed with lung cancer. A
few weeks later -- just prior to what was supposed tp be his big comeback
fight against Alberto Ontiveros, 5-time world champion Johnny Tapia
dedicated the upcoming fight to his good friend in the hospital, asking
that everyone who attended it to "please donate a buck or two"
to help cover some of Mike's medical expenses. However,
it seems that there was still some fight left in the old scribe, after
all. Mike
Hall - the boxer, not the journalist, came out of retirement
that winter and scored the biggest knockout of his life when he conquered
his disease. In fact, he kicked its rear-end. Once
out of the hospital, Mike composed an email to his old friend Bill Naegele.
Always thinking of his readers, Mike asked that it be shared with his
well-wishers from our site.
Bill: Thanks
for checking up on me. I am doing fine - all things considered. As you
might guess, I am writing from home and doing mostly phone interviews.
Between the combination of chemo and radiation, I kind of work, sleep,
etc. in spurts. As you can see from the time I am writing this, the
spurt says get out of bed even though most normal people are sleeping
at this hour of the night. In about another hour, I will be back in
bed, sleeping soundly. The
doctors say I have done a great responding to treatment. That is, I
have not been sick or terribly weakened. My blood counts have done well,
I've maintained strength, etc. I won't know how the tumor has reacted
to treatment for another month or two, although I believe whatever they
are doing is working. i.e., I plan on living for a long time and plan
on being back to work full force in the spring. You
are right. The schedule is downright goofy. For a reporter, it would
almost be necessary to have the exact same flights, hotels, etc., to
make contact when you need to. It actually is easier in terms of advance
stories doing it here from home. I
plan on catching a game or two before the season is over. Just need
to get the chemo out of my body. I see a lung cancer specialist Jan.
18 to find out if I get more chemo or they are finished. Will know a
lot more then. In the meantime, I am done with the chemo and will be
finished with radiation (35 days worth) this Friday. Thanks
for checking in and for the offer of help. Fortunately, I've been able
to do almost everything for myself - including driving for treatment,
going shopping now and then with my wife, etc. Tell
everyone hello for me and feel free to post anything I have written
you think might be of interest. Take care of yourself and try to stay
calm at the games. Remember, referees are people too. Thanks
again, Mike
When Bill first posted that email, a year and a half ago, I remember everyone letting out a big, collective sigh of relief. Mike was going to be alright. But as Mike himself might have said, in the fight game most comebacks are short-lived. Nevertheless, Mike would make it back that spring, just as he had promised all of us. Oh, but we get ahead of ourselves here. We have barely even touched upon what became one of his greatest passions of all, late in life. But before that was even possible, first, he had to turn southpaw.
"Not many people know about the conversion of Mike Hall," explains his friend Bill Naegele. "I worked with Mike at the Tribune in my final years in newspaper [I left in '88]. By that time, he had been promoted from sports to city editor. I was not particularly close to him then, but I knew that he, as an old time sports guy [specifically boxing], was not a fan of women's athletics. He had made numerous comments about women athletes -- none of which can be printed here. When he first took the job covering the women for the Journal, I had taken it upon myself to warn Flanagan to be careful. Based on some of the things he had said to me in the past, I was worried that Mike might not be a friendly journalist." "Imagine my surprise then, when I first talked to him after he had been on the beat for some months, that he had changed completely. He was interested, enthusiastic and utterly professional about his new job. It was nothing that he really said perhaps, but it was written all over his actions. I knew a lot of reporters who were stuck on beats they didn't like -- and you could feel their dislike and disdain by how they covered -- or didn't cover -- the beat. I never saw that in Mike. He got so good at it, that hell, he could smell out recruits! A little while later, when I was working for a travel agency that made all of UNM's travel arrangements. Mike would call me up out of the blue, and, after an opening salvo of 'How ya doin',' he would try to grill me along the lines of, 'Any coaches flying anywhere?" {laughing} "Whether it was due to Flanagan, the girls, or the program as a whole, he became a believer." 
A believer...yes. That was just Mike being Mike -- nose to the trail. Born again HARD.
It
was a match made in heaven: The ringer and the ink-slinger. Few people really noticed it in 1995, when UNM Athletic Director Rudy Davalos snuck a ringer in to shepherd the Lady Lobos, by the name of Don Flanagan. Heck, fewer even cared. The total attendance for all home games the season before had been a miserable 800 poor souls. But that was before the wizard's blueprints began to take shape. Soon, the press began to take notice. In 1998, the very first full-time beat reporter for Lobo women's basketball was hired to promote this suddenly blossoming program. I don't suppose we'll ever know what inertia drove Mike Hall to step down as Associate Sports Editor that year to take over the new beat, but thank goodness he did. He had already been writing about the up and coming team since 1996, so it appears that whatever particular bee had gotten into his bonnet, it had stung him pretty good. "Mike really set the bar for coverage of UNM women's basketball," said Lobo media relations director, Greg Remington. He was an advocate for the sport not only in Albuquerque, but in the old Western Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Conference. I think he had a lot of respect from all of the coaches in that league. They welcomed the attention for women's basketball because it was something not many of them received in their own cities." The ringer himself, Don Flanagan, was often confounded by how Mike Hall often knew more about his own recruits than he did. Nevertheless, Flanagan knew that he had an important ally, and wasn't about to shut him out. "I always felt like he enjoyed working with our student-athletes and working with our team," said Flanagan. "It wasn't really a job for him. He enjoyed the interaction. Our athletes always thought he was fair in his approach to stories and in his coverage of Lobo women's basketball. I certainly considered him a friend and our disagreements were very minimal. We had a good relationship, which is somewhat out of the ordinary these days between a coach and the media. We're sorry to see him go." "Once he got the position of our beat reporter," Flan continues, I knew that it was going to help our program immensely just because of his background, how well he was thought of. I thought throughout his time his intention was always very positive with our program. And I really appreciated the recognition that he brought to our program." While admitting that that Hall sometimes seemed to know "too much," and that he didn't always like the stories that were printed, Flanagan said that this did not keep Hall from being highly regarded. "I respected him as a reporter and as somebody that would give us honest and fair coverage," he told the Albuquerque Journal. Mike's greatest gift on the beat - besides antagonizing Flanagan with what he already knew, was in providing Lobo parents with an ocassional care package back home. For mom and dad back at the homestead, he was often the only lighthouse in a Rio Grande wilderness. "Mike Hall was a very wonderful man who cared deeply about the Lady Lobos," says LuAnne Montgomery -- the mother of recently graduated Lobo star and fan-favorite, Katie Montgomery. "Being so far away from Albuquerque, I always looked forward to reading his articles so that I could capture the true story of what happened in the games. He was always very positive towards the girls and and their families, which we always appreciated." Katie's dad, Dick Montgomery, often visited with Mike at the games they attended, and was impressed by the dedication the reporter showed in simply "getting things right." "I can sum Mr. Hall in one word...PEOPLE," says Mr. Montgomery. "Mike cared about people first -- and the the news story second. This philosophy was reflected in his consistently warm smile and kind words. That was my first impression of Mike when we first met him at the Pit on Katie's Offical Lobo Visit, and it only grew stronger as we got to know him better."
Whether or not Mike ever really understood his importance in the sudden emergence of the Lady Lobos, I can't really say. But as people often say, "God was in the details." "Ultimately," Mike's daughter Katherine Hall has said, "he liked to write." "I always thought he just liked to write (newspaper) articles, but it turned out he wrote a lot of stuff," referring to his journals. "We were reading a lot of it last night." She then added, "He just wrote all of the time. He was humorous and fun-loving, though very strong and courageous." By the 2006-2007 season, New Mexico had ranked Top Five in attendence nationally, for seven straight seasons. During the 2002-2003 season, 226,024 people had pushed past the turnstiles, as opposed to only 800 people from the season prior to the ringer and the ink-slinger. It
was a fairy tale in every sense of the word....from rags to riches literally.
Mike would have been right about those comebacks. When he came down with double pneumonia while covering a Lady Lobo game against the Sooners in his home state early in 2007, it was about the worst thing that could have possibly happened to those smoke and cancer devastated lungs of his. "Like all of us," Iliana Limón said with a sigh, "Mike had his vices. I sure wish he had never picked up a cigarette so that he would have had a better chance fighting the pneumonia that ultimately took his life." Mike fought the pneumonia like a true champion -- bare-knuckled and giving no quarter. He was given a standing eight count numerous times, but always bounced right back up. I would see his handle on our site at the damnest times, and that made me think everything was going to be alright. Just nineteen days before he passed, Mike was finally out of intensive care and sent Lady Lobo play-by-play man Joe Berhand an update to send along to his many well-wishers. Thanking all of the Lobo fans for their thoughts and prayers, Mike promised to be back on the beat soon. Though his heart never really threw in the towel, journalist Mike Hall was finally counted out on February 23rd, 2007. Just a few days later -- on March 1st, he was laid to rest in a beautiful celebration by those that loved him most. And who didn't love him? It was a celebration because everyone that had ever known him -- who had ever had their paths cross with his -- or who had ever simply found their words in one of those raggedy, old notebooks that he carried around, were all the richer for it. For Mike knew the secret: We were all just humans being. And the irony would certainly not have been lost on Mike, that the Major Leaguer who's quote began this story, was born only an hour's drive from where Mike himself was born in Oklahoma. It is somehow even more ironic, that when Mike Hall passed on at the age of 61 years young, he was exactly the same age that Willie "Pops" Stargell was at the time of his own death. I wonder if Mike has gotten that interview yet....
He wanted to look a person in the eye and shake their hand. To make a connection. The
old boxer in Mike also wanted to size up everything in life the same
way he might have dealt with an opponent all those years ago. The same way he did with a particularly challenging story. The
same way that he took the Lady Lobos under his wing. And
the same way that he ultimately dealt with his own mortality. Still,
I have to chuckle sometimes, whenever I think of how difficult those
phone interviews Mike had to conduct during all of those weeks of convalescence
must have been for him. Mike needed to see and feel the humanity like
most people need a drink of water. Oh,
but perhaps I am a bit old-fashioned, too. When Mike first passed, I thought real seriously about putting a special graphic next to his name on our member's list -- a kind of 'half-mast' sort of thing. Then I realized, Mike had never flown "half-mast" his entire life. No, he had been a full-staff kind of guy from the day he was born. And besides, it simply made me feel better to see it there as it had always been. To make a connection of my own, so to speak. The same way it makes me feel better to go back and re-read his old stories, vainly trying to figure out how a real writer such as himself, captures such richly detailed human images without the aid of a camera. And that'll be the same way that I'll feel whenever I see a rainbow over the Pit. It's just that old rascal Mike Hall again -- flying by the seat of his pants and covering his beloved Lady Lobos for that big newspaper up in the sky.
* The 1990 Best Sports Story award from the Albuquerque Press Club * The 1991 Best Sports Story award from the New Mexico Press Association * The 1993 Best Sports Story award from the New Mexico Press Association * On February 27, 2007, Senator Pete Domenici {R-NM} paid tribute to Mike on the floor of the Unted States Senate, in front of God, Country and President.
I owe a great deal to many sources for this story. The fact that it is rather long, simply owes to the fact that Mike had a lot of admirers. First off, I want to thank the Albuquerque Journal, the Albuquerque Tribune and GoLobos.com for supplying many of the first-hand quotes up above. Next, I want to thank the individual newspersons who contributed their warm regards for Mike -- whether by first person or by previous comments. James Yodice; Will Webber; Gary Stepic; Felix Chavez; Mark Smith; William de Worde and Sam Aselstine. Next, a special thanks to Richard Stevens for coming through for me, despite his website handicap. A very special thanks to Ed Johnson, who's very real feelings for Mike came shining through in his words. Thank-you Bill Naegele. Your insights were invaluable. Thanks so much to the Montgomery family. Your daughter is exactly the reason why Mike found this team to be so wonderful. It is the same reason why we all do. But my biggest thanks must go to Iliana Limón. She kept me believing this was worthwhile, even after I had lost faith in my own ability to put the pieces together. She puts her words into actions like no other. Mike knew a kindred spirit when he saw one.
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More
importantly, he never allowed any of us to forget. An old-school,
fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants type of guy, Mike seldom walked away from
scribbling an interview into one of those dog-eared notebooks that he
always carried around, without having made a new friend in the bargain.
I have typically found in the past, that the best sports reporters to
be found on any beat, usually tended to be maniacal sports fans
themselves. 
"Mike
made me a better reporter," relates Albuquerque Tribune football
and women's basketball beat reporter, Iliana Limón. "I'm
a very competitive person, and I had to be at my best every day to keep
up with Mike. He was a really thorough reporter who was always working
on developing stories on his beat. I think women's basketball in New
Mexico was much, much better off because he took the beat so seriously."
Local
boxer and 2-time world champion Danny Romero had been reading Mike's
boxing stories about his own bad self ever since he could remember.
Few
people seem to know about the dawn, or as it is more correctly called,
the conversion. The ones who actually did, seemed to have forgotten
about it in the 180 degree cyclone that soon followed. For those who's
lives it touched during the years immediately following that conversion,
it was indeed, the perfect storm.
The
former Lobo star herself, Katie Montgomery (or Katie-Bird as I like
to call her), had this to say about the reporter who had so become a
fixture with the team, "Mike Hall was always well respected by
all of the UNM Players. He always had the best interest of the players
in mind, instead of just trying to find out the "best story".
He was always very kind and respectful to us especially after he had
to interview us after we lost a game. (which probably wasn't the easiest!)
We will miss his enthusiasm and coverage of UNM Lady Lobos."
Mike
was the first reporter to join our site way back on June 3rd of 2004.
In fact, he was just the 27th person overall, to join this thing. No
matter how hard I tried though, I could never talk him into posting.
"I'm really just an observer," he'd say with a wink and a
nod. I used to think that it was just shyness, but I later realized
that it was just old-school Mike again, flying by the seat of his pants
on the Internet. 
