Robert Wayne McCoy

Robert Wayne McCoy, 82, passed away on May 8, 2020. He was born on a farm in Nebraska on April 26, 1938 to Erma and Wayne McCoy. He attended a one-room school with his sister Carol and his brother Bruce and listened to St. Louis Cardinal games as he worked on the farm in the summers. He went on to high school in Tecumseh where he played sports until he contracted bulbar polio at the age of 14. He was in an iron lung when his father was called to the hospital to say goodbye. He was the only one of four boys in iron lungs in his hospital room to recover. He graduated from Tecumseh High School in 1955.

He was attending the University of Nebraska when a Cardinals farm team came to town offering try-outs for the team. He stopped by the newspaper office to find out the time and location, and the sportswriter gave him the details and asked him to write a few lines about the event. Bob didn’t make the team, but he did get a job offer writing sports stories for the Lincoln Star.

He moved on to the copy desk at the Omaha World-Herald. In Omaha he met and married Toni Tucker in 1963. It was a happy marriage that lasted 57 years. They moved with their Siamese cat Harry the Cat to St. Louis and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. There he worked on the copy desk and moonlighted on the sports desks on heavy game days when most of the reporters were covering sports events. This led to a position in the sports department which he loved.

He also loved his job at Busch Memorial Stadium. He worked for all 39 seasons as part of the team that ran the message board for the Cardinal baseball games and he was the one who got to turn off the lights when the game was over and the fans had left. He relished his time spent in the announcer booth as a spotter during the St. Louis Cardinals football games. He was the St. Louis correspondent for Sports Illustrated

Bob and Toni had three daughters, Tracy, Nicole, and Kitty, and a son, Tim, between 1965 and 1982. Their son Tim was left deaf and severely brain damaged by meningitis at the age of 2. Tim went to the Judevine Center for Autistic Children for many years. Bob spent many evenings taking him for walks or to parks or swimming. They attended many Spirits of St. Louis basketball games.

His children were his pride and joy. He liked playing games with his daughters, taking them to sporting events, and watching them play sports—something he was able to continue with his grandchildren. He helped coach a softball team they called the Ruthless Babes.

The girls grew up and had families of their own. Tracy married Kevin Model and they had three children: Jackie, Joe, and Danny. Nicole married Jon Kuhlmann, and they had Morgan and Tyler. Kitty married Dave Willis, and they had Coleman. Bob never tired of playing with them and cheering them on and they loved “Pop” in return.

His family was never without pets. Harry the Cat, Janice, Angel, Piwacket, Carmen, Harry the Cat II, Jonah, Spooky, Tagalong, Dusty, Bosco, Squishy, Sophia, Wolfgang, Murphy, and numerous unnamed fish (tropical and in the pond in the back yard) were walked, petted, fed and admired by him. He was filling five bird feeders daily at the time they moved from their home.

In 1980, Bob went to work for The Sporting News. He wrote a column, “Keeping Score” about quirky things that had happened in the sports world during the week.

In 1991 Bob returned to the Post-Dispatch and was a copy editor for “Everyday” magazine.

During all this time he was busy in Webster Groves as a Sunday School teacher at First United Church of Webster Groves, teaching third and fourth grade Sunday School for years, inventing such games as Bible baseball. He was president of the Methodist Men’s Club that put on a big breakfast for the whole church every Easter morning, and even had something for the women—a Shrove Tuesday pancake-flipping race. Another passion, his investment club, Twenty Grand, was based at that church.

He taught sports writing at Webster University. Once a season, the class attended a Cardinals baseball game and went to the locker room afterward to get quotes to use in their stories. One year they happened to hit the game when Mark McGwire hit three home runs.

He appeared one year at a Halloween party as Chicken Man, and it gave him great pleasure to wear the costume to play men’s softball while his family pretended not to know him. He excelled at trivia and relished the wave of trivia events. He bowled for years on a Post-Dispatch team. At bridge he was not a formidable opponent, but he attended bridge clubs with his wife enthusiastically.

He was a Webster Groves Kiwanian, working hard at their fundraisers to support Camp Wyman. He and his daughters had adventures with Indian Princesses.

Bob was also a 50-year member of the Tecumseh Masonic Lodge. He joined in Tecumseh and maintained his membership for 50 years, receiving a plaque from the Lodge for that achievement.

He had a phenomenal memory—the kind where he knew the date of any occurrence mostly because he tied it to something that happened in sports. In his 60s, however, something went wrong, and he began to lose his total recall. He said it felt like a brain fog.

They moved to Aberdeen Heights, a continuing care retirement community. His condition deteriorated and he ended up living at Parc Provence, a memory care facility, where he was cared for with compassion and light-heartedness.

Bob was preceded in death by his parents, Wayne (in 1985) and Erma (in 2003), and by his infant sister, Barbara (in 1935).

He is survived by wife Toni; daughters, Tracy, Nicole and Kitty, son Tim, and six grandchildren; his sister, Carol Smith of Omaha, and brother, Bruce McCoy of Omaha.

A memorial service will be held in St. Louis in August or September, after the pandemic restrictions have loosened.

We will always remember him as he was--a gentle and humble man who lived an abundant life, full of joy and sorrow. He was creative, curious, and loved to research answers. He was tenacious and full of humor. He was an honorable man.