The loss of my good friend and mentor Ed Daniels has broken my heart.
I first met Ed when I was a young man in the mid-1980s when he was still at WDSU-TV with Buddy Diliberto, Ro Brown and Vince Marinello. He was doing a story on a young tennis star named Nan Marcello who played at the Chateau Country Club in the mid to late ’80s. As a kid, you were always amazed to see TV cameras in your local bar.
In 2002, I started helping Ken Trahan with the Original Prep Football Report, so Ed knew me. Fast forward to 2003, when I was recovering from a serious car accident. To get out of the house, I went to WGNO-TV with my friend Jeff Horchak to help Ed with the scores for Friday Night Football. When Ed came into the room and saw me bandaged, he asked what happened. I helped Ed one more time that year when I was on the road to full recovery.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit and I helped with Friday Night Football since it was remote, with the satellite truck and the original. During the season, Ken Trahan, Ed and I were usually at the best game until the Original Prep Football Report resumed in Week 10.
When WGNO moved to Metairie in the Galleria, I helped out even more and was at the station a lot by now. Ed would go out and shoot veterans on Mardi Gras day and he happened to pick the spot where I was standing so we hung out while we finished Mardi Gras in Jefferson Parish.
Over the next few years, whenever possible, I was either in the studio or out in the field as a freelancer with a cameraman for WGNO, shooting highlights for FNF or deciphering game footage from other cities, even after FNF had already started.
In 2011, the first year of the Allstate Sugar Bowl National Prep Classic, we had just a single boys’ squad, which has since grown to include multiple boys’ and girls’ squads. It was based at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner for the first year, and has since moved to the multiple-court Alario Center in Westwego. Ed had me help him with this endeavor until I moved to Baton Rouge in 2014.
My last football season in New Orleans was 2013. I worked Friday Night Football almost every week and loved it. There were a few bumps in the road that season, but Friday Night Football continued and we did everything we needed to do to make the show the quality show it is today.
On a personal level, Ed helped me with a few other things when he could during difficult times, because that’s the kind of man he was.
You will never meet better professionals and people than Ken and Ed.
Ed, thank you for the memories, my mentor and friend. Mrs. Robin Hecker Daniels, my heart goes out to you, the rest of your family and your extended WGNO and sports family. I can now hear Ed “Randolph J. Pistorius.” I will miss hearing that, always and forever.
I know you’re with some of the greats of NOLA sports shining down on us. Good luck, my friend. We’re turning third base and heading home. Goodbye, and thanks again for the memories. Goodbye, farewell, and amen.
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