Joe Gilmartin, Hall of Fame basketball journalist and first PBWA president, dies at 88

Joe Gilmartin is interviewed before his induction into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame on April 8, 2015. (Photo by Michael Chow, The Arizona Republic)

By Sam Smith

Joe Gilmartin, the George Washington of the Professional Basketball Writers Association, died Tuesday. He was 88.

Joe was our own Founding Father for the PBWA — then the Professional Basketball Writers Association of America, since we were fairly xenophobic in that era — much as George Washington was for the United States. Perhaps it was on a somewhat less significant stage, however.

The PBWA was started in 1972. In the beginning and for many years, it was an honor much pursued to represent the organization. Not that it isn’t now, but isn’t as much the organizational and political battle for leadership it once was. There were times not that long ago — OK, long ago — when people running for president actually formed committees and campaigned for votes. Ah, the democratic process.

Professional basketball reporters faced difficult working conditions, and something needed to be done to protect the reporters’ rights. So the writers decided to write a constitution and have basic tenets to follow.

It was not unlike (though perhaps not as important as) when the young United States decided the Articles of Confederation wouldn’t work and the fledgling country needed a constitution. There was only one person then who could avoid the internal debates they called “faction” and whom everyone could unite behind: George Washington. So he was the unanimous choice as president of the Constitutional Convention and then first president of the United States.

When the PBWA was created, there was a heated debate about who should lead. New York, Boston and Philadelphia were the most active NBA cities back then for obvious reasons. Writers from those cities were demanding that one of their writers be the new organization’s representative.

The compromise became the one person covering the NBA whom everyone agreed had the appropriate integrity and credentials and was well liked and respected. Those writers from the major eastern cities couldn’t agree on anything except that Joe Gilmartin should be the first president of the PBWA.

Joe served the PBWA’s first presidential term from 1972-74 with Bob Logan from Chicago as vice president and Mike Janofsky from Baltimore as secretary-treasurer.

Joe was from Kansas and began his journalism career in Wichita, where among the events he covered was Wilt Chamberlain’s famous college loss to Kansas State.

Joe moved to the Phoenix Gazette and was its sports editor and its main sports columnist and a regular NBA presence for decades. He was courtside for the famous 1976 Finals series, one of dozens he covered. Joe possessed a light touch. Famously, he wrote of the moody Hall of Famer Connie Hawkins that Connie was “a work of art — on some nights poetry in motion, on some nights, still life.”

Joe won 16 Arizona Sportswriter of the Year awards and the 2014 Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was a regular at Suns games until about the last year.

Joe stood for the traditions, commitment, decency and honor Professional Basketball Writers Association members strive to represent in our coverage of the NBA.

Sam Smith covers the Chicago Bulls for Bulls.com. Smith previously worked for the Chicago Tribune and served as the PBWA’s president from 1999-2005.