Ed Daniels’ secret to a life well-lived

By Peter Finney Jr. 
Clarion Herald


For the last 20 years, my Monday morning schedule included a quick check-in with Ed Daniels, who wrote a sports column for the Clarion Herald and who at the time of his unexpected death at the age of 67 was the longest-tenured sportscaster in New Orleans.

Because of our publication deadlines, Ed usually wrote his column late on Sunday nights, so his 485-word piece, give or take a few adverbs, was in my inbox on Monday mornings. Ed never missed a deadline. I’d either send him an email reply or give him a quick call to thank him. His opinions on the Saints, Pelicans, LSU or Tulane were always breezy, well-researched and grounded in facts.

Ed wasn’t a “hot-take” guy – the kind of reporter who sells venom to the highest bidder, which has become the mother’s milk of TV sports. Like a worthy prosecutor or defense attorney, Ed took jurors by the hand and built a closing argument, all without being argumentative.

As much as I loved reading Ed for his passionate take on local sports, the columns that always will resonate with me are the ones about his family and his faith.

As we mourned with Ed’s family at his Funeral Mass at St. Philip Neri Church on Aug. 22, my mind drifted back to a Father Day’s column Ed wrote just last year. He pulled readers into the despair of a 15-year-old from Kenner, peeking through the blinds of his living room window as the ambulance pulled away with his father, Ed Daniels Jr., then in his late 40s, who was dying of lung cancer.

“(My dad) was heading back to an Uptown hospital, never to return home,” Ed wrote. “All those years later, his hands are still on his only child’s shoulders. He loved New Orleans. He loved New Orleans sports. My mother used to wonder at times if he loved the games more than he loved her. I didn’t want to speculate. I might be wrong.”

Navigating his teenage years fatherless – and as an only child – drew him even closer to his mother Ursula. In 1969, when Ed was just 13 and a student at St. Jerome School, he committed a venial sin common among boys religiously invested in weekday afternoon World Series games.

This time, it was the Orioles playing the Miracle Mets.

“Mom, it’s the World Series, and I’m just not feeling well,” Ed told her.

“You know, you don’t look well,” Ursula replied. “Why don’t you stay home and take it easy?”

Ed’s father was a 1941 graduate of Warren Easton who joined the Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and he served as a radioman on a destroyer in the Mediterranean Sea.

“He never, ever, spoke about his experiences,” Ed said in a column, explaining that his father’s bravery during WWII and the actions of hundreds of police and firefighters who ran toward the burning Twin Towers in the 9-11 terrorist attacks compelled him always to stand for the national anthem.

Ed often kidded his wife Robin about melting their credit cards with online shopping, but he made sure everyone knew he was just kidding and that she was entitled to anything she wanted.

Robin meant that much to him.

In a Christmas column last year, Ed wrote of Robin: “She is, to me, the best of the best. She has always told me her No. 1 goal in life is to be the best mother she can. She has succeeded, wildly. When I need a reality check, I don’t have to go to the French Quarter and hire a tarot card reader. She is my life coach. I honestly don’t know if I could take a breath without her.”

As we all know, through the grace of God, Robin was there at Ed’s side in a Los Angeles hotel room, when her husband suffered the heart attack that eventually claimed his life.

In her column in the Aug. 17 issue of the Clarion Herald, Robin said she could see God’s providence in the midst of inscrutable tragedy: She had never before accompanied her husband on the road for Saints’ training camp because Ed had too much work to do. But, this trip was going to be a working vacation. 

Stories of Buddy D

Ed was a broadcast student at Loyola in 1978 when he first interned under Buddy Diliberto at Channel 8. Buddy D was the master of the malaprop – “Quarterback Dan Fouts has retired after years of bombing NFL secretaries …” – but Ed emulated the work ethic that made Buddy so revered among the common fan. Ed said Buddy taught him five things: 1. Give your opinion. 2. Read, read and read some more. 3. Get up early. Go to bed late. 4. The best years of your career and your life are often the later ones. 5. Laugh at your own mistakes.

Ed and Buddy laughed together. Like the time in the pre-Google map days when Buddy was on a California road trip but got lost trying to get to Santa Anita Park in time to bet on the daily double. Buddy thought he had the perfect solution when he saw a California Highway Patrol car parked on the shoulder, so he pulled over.

“Problem was,” Ed wrote, “the cop was in the middle of arresting a driver. While he held the man in cuffs, he gave Buddy directions.”

Ed had no trouble knowing where he was going. 

He and Robin loved to travel, and one of their most memorable trips was actually a Catholic pilgrimage in 2014 to Italy, Greece and Turkey. Ed told me the highlight of that trip came in Ephesus, walking into the home believed to be the last place the Blessed Mother lived.

“Inside it was wonderfully quiet,” he wrote.

And, now, we are the ones left in the silence, pondering the goodness and sanctity of a life well lived as a husband, father and reporter.

“Then, there’s Robin,” Ed wrote at Christmas 2022. “She is the best wife, mother and grandmother any man could ever know. Christmas is all about family. And, there’s no person on the planet who is more in tune with the needs of her family than my bride.

“She is a shining example of what it means to give. What a champ. The best of the best.

“New Year’s resolutions are in sight. So, next week, let’s all make a decision to give more. It’s the best thing we can give each other. Because when you give, we give each other hope.

“And, forget about what you may read and see elsewhere. The greatest days are ahead.

“It’s all a part of God’s promise.”

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