'Doc' hailed as 'one of a kind'

When the Gloucester Fishermen's football team takes the field Friday night, hundreds of people will pay a silent homage to one of the city's biggest sports fans — and a local reporter whose stories were a vital part of the Gloucester Daily Times for 40 years.

John "Doc" Enos died Sunday night at the age of 79.

Enos wasn't just a longtime Times reporter; he was a walking Encyclopedia of local sports information and statistics. In his shadow, he also left a trail sprinkled with young reporters who learned many lessons in both writing and human relations.

"Doc was one of a kind. So gruff outside, so kind inside," wrote Philip Hersh, now with The Chicago Tribune. "I'll never forget how much help he gave me when I was the 23-year-old alleged whiz kid sports editor with no local knowledge, and he was a treasure trove of everything Gloucester. I'm sure he saved me from a million mistakes, missteps and stepped-upon toes."

Kevin Sullivan, who worked at the Gloucester Times from 1982 to 1985, remembered the old-school reporter who was a Times staple from 1963 through his 2003 retirement.

"Doc had the purest journalism instincts I've ever seen, and he was a wonderful mentor and teacher," said Sullivan, a Pulitzer Prize winner and now Sunday and Features Editor of The Washington Post. "Any day spent with Doc was a day when you were guaranteed a good laugh. He left an indelible mark on many generations of grateful journalists who passed through the Gloucester Times,"

Enos was a humble man, and a gentleman, who likely would shake his head knowing that a front-page story was being written about him for today. Joan Enos, his wife of more than 50 years, said her husband died peacefully even though he had been ill for some time.

He had a work ethic like no other.

When Enos arrived at the GDT office one night to write his sports story, he discovered there was no power. He moved his car in the parking lot so that the car's headlights would shine through the front plate-glass window. He then sat on the floor with his manual typewriter to write his story.

"He always got his sports stuff done at night," recalled his son, David Enos, a Gloucester High science teacher. The Times was an afternoon paper for most of Enos' career, and most reporters wrote their stories in the morning.

"The best story of his devotion to reporting was the time during the hockey game when he had a heart attack and he knew it, but he knew if he left the game, the story would not get written," said David Enos. "He finished the game, having a heart attack, drove to office, wrote up the story, then drove himself to the hospital."

David Leeco, the Times city editor from 1985 to 1996, fondly recalled Enos' use of words.

"Doc truly loved the craft of newspaper writing in the old-school style of starting with 'who, what, when and where,'" Leeco recalled. "He would rework the 'lede' of a story over and over to get in the most facts possible in the least amount of words.

"Editor Bill McCulloch used to say that Doc could come up with a paragraph that had 'the density of a dark star,'" Leeco recalled.

Leeco said he was reminded of that talent last spring when — along with the many stories about an arrest in a decades-old murder case — the Times ran a shot of the original story written by Enos.

Enos' lede to the story was: "A 65-year-old employee of Pike Funeral Home was shot to death yesterday, probably to prevent her from identifying the person who stole $1,500 from a company safe."

Mark Pratt, a former sports editor at the Gloucester Times summed up Enos when he shared his thoughts at a special event in Enos' retirement in 2004:

"Doc is the stereotypical Tootsie Pop. Underneath the hard exterior is a soft center. Despite his gruffness, beneath the cries of 'Rats ass' and 'Can you believe those idiots?' Doc truly cared about his colleagues, the youth of Gloucester and the city."

The city noted his dedication to local sports when it named the press box at Newell Stadium after Enos, who attended games there long after his retirement.

Enos, a father of four and grandfather of 17, knew the effects of words on young athletes.

"I always respected the fact that, if a kid made a mistake, he never named the kid. He'd give us coaches hell but never mentioned the kid," recalled John Matheson, a GHS baseball coach for eight years. "He never mentioned once the name of the kid that made an error. Or in a football game, he'd just said there was a fumble but never mentioned the young man who fumbled the ball."

David Harrison, a retired District Court judge and football player in high school and college, echoed this sentiment.

"In sports, he never wanted to hurt anybody," Harrison said. "If a kid made a wrong play and lost the game, he never named that kid. He'd go to the coach and say tell me something good about what happened."

Bob Roland, a former Gloucester High athletic director, said Enos was always positive.

"It always struck me that no matter what he wrote about, whether it was the opposing player or the Gloucester player, he was always positive about the kids," said Roland.

Enos served as a Little League umpire for about 25 years, and he is remembered for calling strikes even if the spectators didn't agree with the call.

"He was very, very consistent. If the ball didn't bounce going over the plate, it was a strike — for both sides," said Matheson.

Enos, who graduated from Gloucester High in 1949, played some sports himself, though he stood around 5-foot-8, weighing in around 135 pounds. He spent two years in the Army, and then attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

"He was one of the small guys to play football but one of the toughest. He would step in front of anybody no matter what the size. He played like a 200-pounder," recalled Matheson, his high school classmate. "He also ran in track. He wasn't the fastest but he gave it his all. He only had one speed — full speed."

Although he didn't see much field time on the college football team, he set a UMass record for the longest kickoff return.

Roland said Enos will be greatly missed at the football games where hundreds of residents remember him for his clicking away on his "1952-like" typewriter.

"It will be difficult this coming Friday night, not to see Doc there," said Roland. "He was famous for walking up the steps to the press box with his typewriter and then clicking away throughout the game. He'd be at all the games, freshmen, JV and varsity."

His eldest child, Mary-Alice Curcuru remembered that her father even watched intramural hockey games.

"He'd be at the high school games yelling and swearing in the press box, but you never saw it in his story, just the facts," said Curcuru.

Harrison, who was a couple years behind Enos at Gloucester High, also remembers Enos' generosity to the high school boys who had girlfriends in Lanesville and Enos was the only one with a car.

"He used to give everybody a ride," he said. " He was famous in high school for being in charge of the 'Lanesville Express.' He'd pick up the guys who dated girls in Lanesville and later brought them home."

Through Harrison, Enos got into the job working as a sports information director, first as a student assistant for a friend of his. Enos, whose father had also worked for the Times as a typesetter, later worked as an SID at the University of New Hampshire. From there, he took the job back in his hometown at the Gloucester Daily Times in 1963.

"Doc was just a classy guy, and you always had a laugh with him," said Roland. "We worked with Doc on the (GHS) Hall of Fame Committee and he was a huge help because he could research all the information about the nominees. He was a wealth of information with sports and the players. He was always available."

Enos would go on to write two books, "Nate" about GHS football coach Nate Ross, and another on the first 100 years of football history at Gloucester High. Enos was later inducted to the Hall of Fame for his years of service for local sports.

Peter Watson, a long-time newspaper man at Essex County Newspapers and editor for the Times, described Enos as "an absolute rock."

"He did his job well every day and then he helped other people do theirs," said Watson. "He never left the newsroom without asking the city desk whether there was anything he could do before he left for the day.

"Not far below the grumpy persona was probably the nicest person on the staff to all the interns," Watson recalled.

Watson said Enos was a walking contradiction in many ways. Though he was a man of few words when it came to writing, he was a great story teller with a large repertoire of tales.

David Enos said he remembers his father for many things, but especially for his devotion to youth sports, which included involvement in youth hockey for about 20 years.

"He also taught us how to have fun with nothing," said his son. "We didn't have all the toys that kids have today but it didn't matter."

Mary-Alice Curcuru remembers how much her father loved sports and his job.

"He went to every baseball game, football game and even scrimmages. Sports just ran through his blood," she said.

Now her son — Nick Curcuru, 26 — is taking over where his grandfather left off, as a sportswriter and police reporter for the Gloucester Times.

"My father was proud he got his job," Mary-Alice Curcuru said.

Enos' colleagues at the Times remember "Doc" for his attention to detail.

Night editor Jeff Pope, a long-time colleague and friend, as so many were who worked with Enos, described the veteran reporter's dedication to the craft.

"If you asked Doc a question, like what year the Chester A. Poling sank off Eastern Point? Doc would probably respond with something like 'No idea,'" Pope recalled. "But a short time later, Doc would drop a file on your desk with the answer."

"I remember once asking Doc about some big fire in West Gloucester that a caller to the Times had said it was the 50th anniversary," Pope said.

"Doc did his usual growling, but a day or two later he dropped a completed story on the city editor's desk — complete with historic photos of the event.

"Doc was like that."

Gail McCarthy can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3445 or at gmccarthy@gloucestertimes.com.

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