Funeral services for former sports columnist at The Sun News set for Friday
Mel Derrick, a veteran journalist and award-winning sports columnist for The Sun News during the ‘80s and ‘90s, has died.
Derrick, 83, most recently a resident of Maggie Valley, N.C., died Aug. 28. Funeral services will be held at 11:30 a.m. Friday at Salem United Methodist Church in Irmo.
Derrick joined The Sun News as executive sports editor in 1987, but dropped his administrative responsibilities and became a full-time sports columnist a couple years later. He retired in 1997 amid health problems.
Sporting a bushy white beard, he often would be jokingly referred to as Santa Claus. He was well-known in the community and covered a variety of sports events, including ACC and SEC football games, ACC basketball games, NCAA basketball tournaments as well as the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA golf tournaments.
He knew everybody, had done everything and had a flair for putting it in print like few I have ever had the pleasure to read.”
former The Sun News sports columnist Terry Massey wrote in 2000
“He served in the military in Japan, once drank with Ernest Hemingway and worked for the National Enquirer. But above all, he wrote about sports and the people who played them,” Terry Massey, the columnist who succeeded Derrick wrote in 2000. “He knew everybody, had done everything and had a flair for putting it in print like few I have ever had the pleasure to read.”
Derrick’s journalism career started as a sportswriter for the Atlanta Constitution, working under fabled sports columnist Furman Bisher.
“Furman told me nobody was interested in what I do, they want to read about what other people do,” Derrick told The Sun News in 1996. “He taught me how to write about people, and I always thought that was what I did best.”
His career included stints at The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer, the Virginia Pilot Ledger-Star, the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel and others. He collected a number of awards along the way, including being named N.C. Sportswriter of the Year three times.
In 1989 and again in 1994, the South Carolina Press Association voted his columns for The Sun News the top sports column for daily newspapers over 30,000 circulation. In 1994, he also placed fourth in the nation for his circulation category in balloting by the Associated Press Sports Editors.
He is survived by his son, Chris Derrick; daughter Cami Robinson and son-in-law Shane Robinson; two grandchildren Hannah Robinson and Emma Robinson and five nieces and nephews.
This story was originally published September 8, 2015 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Funeral services for former sports columnist at The Sun News set for Friday."