A Cleveland sports media legend has passed away. On Oct. 6, WJW-TV 8 announced longtime TV sports personality, columnist and reporter Dan Coughlin has died. Longtime Cleveland sports anchor John Telich and Coughlin were good friends who worked together for years at Fox 8 starting in the early 1980s. They met in Lake Placid, N.Y., while covering the 1980 Winter Olympics. Telich was working at a Buffalo TV station, and Coughlin for The Plain Dealer. “He was in love with a great story,” said Telich about Coughlin. “He was a great listener who could find out what was interesting in a story and put it on the printed page or on the air. “… Danny could spin a beautiful yarn about a softball player from Parma just as well about a popular professional athlete.” As for their first meeting in Lake Placid, Telich could only laugh. “He said, ‘Take a seat and let’s talk. There’s two beers, and both are for me,’ ” said Telich. Coughlin’s journalism career began in 1964 as a sports writer with The Plain Dealer. He remained with The PD until 1982. His first beat at The PD was high school sports, which he covered for 18 years. In the late 1970s, he became the full-time baseball writer for The PD. He also covered the Browns, Notre Dame football, boxing, slow-pitch adult softball and other sports. “I covered the big high school game on Friday, a big college game on Saturday and the Browns every Sunday. And they paid me to do it. It was like going to Cedar Point every weekend,” Coughlin said upon his induction into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. Coughlin left the PD in 1982 to join the Cleveland Press, but the newspaper went out of business three months later. Then in 1983, Coughlin joined Channel 8 as a sports anchor until his retirement, although he remained with the TV station as a contributor to the station’s high school football show “Fright Night Touchdown.” Coughlin literally worked until the end. On Oct. 4, Telich said he covered the St. Edward-St. Ignatius football game for Fox 8. He also worked as a part-time sports columnist for The News-Herald and The Morning Journal in Lorain. “He was one of those old newspaper folks who was larger than life,” said Telich. “He was one of the greatest story tellers ever. He was truly a one of one.” In the early 2010s, Coughlin wrote three books about his career in sports media. The first was titled, “Crazy, With the Papers to Prove It: Stories About the Most Unusual, Eccentric and Outlandish People I’ve Known in 45 Years as a Sports Journalist.” “The title of the book doesn’t lie,” The News-Herald wrote in its review of the book. “Save a few, each story and person is more outlandish than the other. The beauty of (the book) is the quick-hitting tales, plus Coughlin’s easy-to-read style, charm and humor. Put it down for a few days, and come back later. Heck, jump around from chapter to chapter to a favorite topic or personality. It’s all there for the Cleveland sports fan.” The first was so popular, he wrote another … and then a third. Coughlin and his wife Maddy grew up in Lakewood and lived in Rocky River. They have four children and many grandchildren. His oldest grandson Danny served as grand dad’s assistant while covering high school football games on Friday nights, including the St. Ed-St. Ignatius game on Oct. 4.