I was saddened to read of the death of longtime sportscaster Mike Hogewood. Mike covered sports and I cover politics, so we didn’t see each other on the job that often, but it was always a pleasure when we did.
Everyone who knew him has a Mike Hogewood story or four. Here’s one of mine.
Not long after I moved back to Greensboro and started The Rhinoceros Times, I ran into Mike at a Greensboro Hornets game. Like everyone else in the area I had seen him on television and knew he was Mike Hogewood. But he had no reason to know who I was, so I introduced myself and he looked me in the eye as he shook my hand and said, “I’m Mike Hogewood.” I thought, “whoop-dee-do. These TV people have huge egos.” But he didn’t let go of my hand, looked me straight in the eye and said it again: “I’m Mike Hogewood.” I started to say something like, I heard you the first time.
Then I looked back at him and couldn’t help myself because it suddenly dawned on me. I said, “Oh, my gosh. You’re Mike Hogewood.”
He said, “Yes, indeed.”
I thought I was meeting Mike Hogewood the television sports caster, and I was, but I was also shaking hands with Mike Hogewood from the Grimsley High School tennis team who I had been friends with in high school.
I played tennis for Page and was at best erratic, but whenever we played Grimsley, whatever slot I was in, it seemed I always played against Mike Hogewood. We were both class of 1972 and competing against each other over our high school careers we got to be pretty good friends and used to hang out, even when we weren’t playing against each other.
Then we both went off to college, started careers and all of that and I hadn’t seen him in over 20 years. What was embarrassing was he knew exactly who I was and, despite the fact that he was a-well known celebrity, I had to be reminded that he was my old friend Mike Hogewood.
